I'm giving a lecture at St. John Fisher University in Rochester, NY called “Dissolving the I in the We: Love and the Problem of Community.” This lecture is a part of the annual St. Thomas More lecture series in ethics. I plan to address the theme of community and look more specifically at the function and … Continue reading Dissolving the I in the We: Love and the Problem of Community
Religion and Communitas: Structure and Anti-Structure
One of the reasons that religion persists in human civilization is because it is able to incorporate what the anthropologist Victor Turner calls communitas into structure, or normal society. Turner is a philosophical anthropologist, and in his classic study The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, he points out how the liminal or transitional experiences of rituals … Continue reading Religion and Communitas: Structure and Anti-Structure
Excerpt: Thinking Islamic Governance with Continental Philosophy
I have a new essay on Wael Hallaq's book, The Impossible State: Islam, Politics, and Modernity’s Moral Predicament at the very excellent publication Society for Contemporary Thought and the Islamicate World (http://sctiw.org/sctiw_review) coming out on February 10th. My main interest in this essay, in addition to reviewing the book, is to start a dialogue with Islam and continental philosophy … Continue reading Excerpt: Thinking Islamic Governance with Continental Philosophy
All in the Family: Community, Incommensurability and Dissensus
Kennan Ferguson's All in the Family: On Community and Incommensurability puts forward a re-definition of the family as a metaphor for community. The main focus of the text is a re-interrogation of the family, away from an homogenous and normative basis for the grounding of community, but towards a definition of the family as a network of relations that … Continue reading All in the Family: Community, Incommensurability and Dissensus
Community and Subjectivity in Contemporary Theory: Dissertation Abstract
Since I have been away from writing essays and blogs for some time, it might be of interest to readers that I share the abstract of my dissertation that I have been working on, and have just finished. This is my penultimate draft and I plan to defend it this August. Overall, I feel good … Continue reading Community and Subjectivity in Contemporary Theory: Dissertation Abstract
