Butler proposes that even our ideas around biological sex are as conditioned by cultural discourses as our concepts of gender.
Judith Butler on the Construction of Gender and the Sexes
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Strange Bedfellows Scapegoat Russia’s Gays
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It's been a busy few months for anyone paying attention to issues affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Russia. This summer the Russian parliament passed a bill prohibiting the so-called "promotion of nontraditional sexual relations" in the presence of minors, a euphemistic expression replacing language in the initial bill which more explicitly prohibited "the...
Murder in Volgograd – Part 2
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In a previous post I presented some information about the murder in May 2013 of Vladislav Tornovoi in Volgograd, as well as some background information for framing the discourse around homosexuality in Russia. This post continues where the last left off.
Murder in Volgograd
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I wrote this piece back in May, hoping for publication with the Divinity School's Sightings column. But writing about current events is like trying to hit a moving target. Before it could be published, there were new developments in the case, requiring significant revision to remain under a 750-word limit. So I've decided to post here. This is the first installment on this subject.
Russian Church-State Relations: Variations on a Theme
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I first visited Moscow in December of 1989 as a tourist on winter break from a program in Russian & Eastern Studies at the University of Kentucky. During one of many bus tours, we stopped at the Kropotkinskaya metro station and piled out into the snow to take pictures of a gigantic, steaming, outdoor swimming pool.
Eucharistic Reflections: Denys the Areopagite, Bonaventure, Hadewijch, and Meister Eckhart
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In the final chapter of The Darkness of God: Negativity in Christian Mysticism, Denys Turner asserts that our contemporary ideas of what constitutes "mysticism" have tended to focus on a kind of experientialism that would seem very foreign to the historical authors we classify as mystical theologians. Rather, beginning with observations offered by Andrew Louth on the mystical theology of Denys...
The Origin of Gender in Eriugena’s Periphyseon
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In his presentation titled The Sleep of Adam, the Making of Eve: Sin and Creation in Eriugena,[*] Donald Duclow explores the gendering of humanity as related in John Scottus Eriugena's Periphyseon, with particular attention to some Eriugenian innovations on the theme. In many ways Periphyseon draws on previous works including those of Gregory of Nyssa[1] and Maximus Confessor. Yet John...
Feuerbach and The Essence of Religion
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Van Harvey's claim that Feuerbach's Essence of Religion[1] presents an important advance over The Essence of Christianity[2] rings true to me in several ways. To understand why, it is necessary to first briefly outline Feuerbach's argument in Christianity.
Kierkegaard and Barth on “mediation”
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Barth and Kierkegaard may each in his own way be seen as voices of resistance against the trends inherent in the liberal theology of their respective milieus. In Fear and Trembling[1], we see Kierkegaard's protest against the totalizing philosophy of the Hegelians. Some 75 years later Barth's Epistle to the Romans[2] would cite Kierkegaard's "leap of faith" in Barth's own objection to the...
Hegel and Troeltsch on the “absoluteness” of Christianity
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While it can be said that Hegel argues for the "absoluteness" of Christianity in his narrative of the development of the "consummate" religion, Troeltsch's characterization of Christianity is not absolute, but rather "normative."