[SydPhil] Seminar: David Newheiser, Rehabilitating the Sacred: On Economic and Negative Theology, 10 April 2019

[Diego Bubbio]

Philosophy @ Western Sydney – Seminar

David Newheiser (ACU)—“ Rehabilitating the Sacred: On Economic and Negative Theology”

Giorgio Agamben argues that, whether it derives from religious worship or national identity, reverence for the sacred functions to neutralize resistance. In response, I claim that a concern for transcendence can intensify critique. By retrieving the tradition of negative theology, I show that it is possible to affirm the special significance of particular texts and traditions while maintaining an ethical discipline that loosens their authority. Where political movements sometimes find it difficult to move from critique to construction, a negative political theology affirms particular policies while maintaining a utopian negativity.

David Newheiser is a specialist in classic Christian thought and contemporary continental philosophy. His primary affiliation is with the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry (ACU), which he joined in 2015. He holds a PhD from the University of Chicago and an MPhil from the University of Oxford. His research addresses the relation between secular philosophy and Christian thought with a particular focus on Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Dionysius the Areopagite. He has published articles on the topics of power and biopolitics, orthodoxy and heresy, allegorical exegesis and the history of sexuality. He has an ongoing research interest in the relation between law and religion, with particular attention to arguments over religious liberty.

Date/Time: Wednesday 10 April 2019, 3.30 pm - 5.00 pm– All Welcome
Place: Western Sydney University, Bankstown Campus, Building 3, Room 3.G.54 [How to get to Bankstown Campus]<http://www.uws.edu.au/campuses_structure/cas/campuses/bankstown>

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