In the latest issue of Theory & Event [sub. req.], a conversation between David Kyuman Kim and Cornel West from a month before the 2008 presidential election.
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Announcements, events, and opportunities related to topics of interest to TIF readers are posted here. Additionally you may find round-ups of news items and brief commentary on current events.
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David Brooks outdoes Pat Robertson
by Daniel VacaA number of blogs recently have criticized David Brooks for his response to the earthquake in Haiti. Noting that Haiti's extreme poverty has turned an unexceptional earthquake into a catastrophe of staggering scale, Brooks accounted for Haiti's poverty by explaining that "Haiti, like most of the world’s poorest nations, suffers from a complex web of progress-resistant cultural influences." While Brooks largely blames Haitians themselves for their poverty, his critics look more to structural and historical inequities. Over at Savage Minds, Kerim Friedman remarks that Brooks's response is "much more insidious" and altogether worse than Pat Robertson's much-lampooned suggestion that Haiti made a "pact with the devil." After all, Friedman notes, people generally take David Brooks seriously.
January 19, 2010
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Schillebeeckx passes
by Nathan SchneiderIn The New York Times, Peter Steinfels eulogizes Edward Schillebeeckx—(pronounced SKIL-uh-bakes)—one of the architects of the Second Vatican Council, which transformed the Catholic Church in the 1960s.
January 20, 2010
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The cult of green
by Nathan SchneiderPhilosopher Stephen T. Asma, in the Chronicle of Higher Education, argues that the guilt-feelings associated with contemporary environmentalism bear the marks of distinctly Christian habits.
January 20, 2010
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Values for the Post-Crisis Economy
by Ruth BraunsteinThe World Economic Forum has released "Faith and the Global Agenda: Values for the Post-Crisis Economy," an annual report on issues related to the role of faith in global affairs. John J. DeGioia, the President of Georgetown University, which collaborated on the report, explains its rationale: “The economic and financial crisis is an opportunity to re-articulate the values that should underpin our global institutions going forward. The world's religious communities are critical repositories of those values.”
January 20, 2010
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Taking the high road in Haiti
by Charles GelmanHearkening back to the cataclysmic Lisbon earthquake of 1755 and its reverberations in Euro-American culture, Paula Cooey reviews some of the history of theological and philosophical reactions to earthly catastrophe and human suffering---most notably, Voltaire's Candide---and appeals for a response to the current crisis in Haiti that is less metaphysical and more altruistic.
January 21, 2010
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Elizabeth McAlister on hope and tragedy in Haiti
by Charles GelmanElizabeth McAlister is an Associate Professor of Religion at Wesleyan University and a member of the SSRC's working group on Spirituality, Political Engagement, and Public Life. She is also a leading scholar of Afro-Carribean religions and the author of Rara! Vodou, Power, and Performance in Haiti and its Diaspora (2002). Following the catastrophic earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12, Professor McAlister's words have appeared in numerous publications and she has been interviewed, as well, on a variety of radio programs.
January 22, 2010
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A Very Brief History of Eternity
by Ruth BraunsteinMiroslav Volf blurbs Carlos Eire's new book, A Very Brief History of Eternity, which asks of its subject, "Is it anything other than a purely abstract concept, totally unrelated to our lives? A mere hope? A frightfully uncertain horizon? Or is it a certainty, shared by priest and scientist alike, and an essential element in all human relations?"
January 24, 2010
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Hip-hop’s new good book
by Nathan SchneiderHip-hop veteran KRS-One (aka The Teacha) has recently published, with powerHouse Books, The Gospel of Hip Hop: First Instrument, which Susan G. Reyes Vasquez quotes from in her post at Feminist Review.
January 25, 2010
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Dark green religion
by Nathan SchneiderReligion Dispatches interviews Bron Taylor, author of the recent book Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future, who has high hopes for new earth-based forms of religion.
January 25, 2010