Political Theology Reimagined

Political theology has emerged as an enormously energetic, creative way of exploring the complex relationships between religion, politics, and culture around the world. Political Theology Reimagined centers decolonial, Black, queer, feminist, and Marxist modes of critical practice to offer a cutting-edge vision of the field that foregrounds a political theology animated by both a fascination with and a suspicion of the secular. Among other things, contributors explore how religious ideas, practices, and imaginations are inflected by anti-Blackness, patriarchy, and colonial histories; theorize anew the status of secularization narratives; probe the universality and translatability of conceptual abstractions; and experiment with the powers of genealogy and speculation. In short, they grapple with religion and critique in all their complexity, opening new itineraries in political theology by transforming its fundamental theoretical coordinates. Traversing diverse sites, from South Asia to the Middle East to Indigenous North America, and working across diverse scales, from the national to the planetary to the cosmic, this volume models the future of political theology by pairing rigorous critique with a commitment to collective liberation.
Contributors. Prathama Banerjee, Agata Bielik-Robson, Kirill Chepurin, Alex Dubilet, James Edward Ford III, Lucia Hulsether, Basit Kareem Iqbal, Ada S. Jaarsma, Siobhan Kelly, David Kline, Adam Kotsko, Dana Lloyd, Vincent W. Lloyd, Beatrice Marovich, Aseel Najib, Milad Odabaei, Inese Radzins, George Shulman, Martin Shuster, Rafael Vizcaíno

Alex Dubilet is Assistant Professor of English at Vanderbilt University.
Vincent W. Lloyd is Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University.

Introduction: Political Theology in Riotous Times / Alex Dubilet and Vincent W. Lloyd 1 Part 1. Expanded Horizons in Critical Theory 1. From Negation to Critique: Adorno on Transcendence / Agata Bielik-Robson 31 2. Poltical Theology’s Antagonisms: Between Stasis and Gnosis / Alex Dubilet 47 3. Exchange Beyond Exchange: Kōjin Karatani and the Persistence of the Religious / Martin Shuster 64 4. Keeping Life Living: Thinking with Michel Henry / Inese Radzins 79 5. Passionate Thinking: Isabelle Stengers and Political Theology / Ada S. Jaarsma 96 Part 2. The Colonial, the Planetary, and the Cosmic 6. For a Historical Grammar of Concepts: Thinking About Political Theology with Talal Asad / Basit Kareem Iqbal and Milad Obadaei 115 7. The Political as Method: Toward a Postcolonial Political Theology of Islam / Aseel Najib 128 8. Postsecular Philosophy and Decolonization as a Political-Theological Struggle / Rafael VizcaÍno 142 9. Political Theology and Religious Criticism: B. R. Ambedkar and His Contemporaries / Prathama Banerjee 156 10. Cosmic Delegitimation: Toward a Political Theology of Scale / Kirill Chepurin 173 Part 3. Race, Blackness, and Modernity 11. Rethinking Political Theology as Faith, Poesis, and Praxis / George Shulman 193 12. On Black Study and Political Theology / Jaes Edward Ford III 210 13. The Science of the Word: Sylvia Wynter, Political Theology, and Human Hybridity / David Kline 226 14. Wound or Healing? Black Feminism and Political Theology / Vincent W. Lloyd 242 Part 4. Itineraries in Feminism and Gender 15. Finding Air: Biomythologies of Breath / Beatrice Marovich 261 16. Sovereign Storytelling: A Political Theology of Bad Intentions / Dana Lloyd 275 17. Toward an Intersectional Genealogical Method: Silvia Federici as a Paradigm for Political Theology / Adam Kotsko 290 18. Political Theology’s Gender Trouble / Siobhan Kelly 304 19. Tabitha’s Trauma: Christian Nationalism, Centrist Jeremiad, and the Reconstruction of the American Family / Lucia Hulsether 319 Bibliography 337 Contributors 369 Index 371