Divine Multiplicity


Book Description

The essays in this volume ask if and how trinitarian and pluralist discourses can enter into fruitful conversation with one another. Can trinitarian conceptions of divine multiplicity open the Christian tradition to more creative and affirming visions of creaturely identities, difference, and relationality—including the specific difference of religious plurality? Where might the triadic patterning evident in the Christian theological tradition have always exceeded the boundaries of Christian thought and experience? Can this help us to inhabit other religious traditions’ conceptions of divine and/or creaturely reality? The volume also interrogates the possibilities of various discourses on pluralism by putting them in a concrete pluralist context and asking to what extent pluralist discourse can collect within itself a convergent diversity of orthodox, heterodox, postcolonial, process, poststructuralist, liberationist, and feminist sensibilities while avoiding irruptions of conflict, competition, or the logic of mutual exclusion.




The Trinitarian Wisdom of God: Louis Bouyer’s Theology of the God-World Relationship


Book Description

Christian theology in recent decades has seen an explosion in the number of books published seeking a renewal of Trinitarian ontology. There has also been a proliferation of studies dedicated to the theology of Wisdom. Few if any of these books on the Trinity or on Wisdom have drawn for inspiration on the comprehensive vision of French Oratorian priest Louis Bouyer (1913–2004), one of the greatest theologians of the modern age. Bouyer produced a comprehensive work of theology that integrated these two seminal concerns based on a vast “re-sourcing” of the Christian tradition. Dr. Keith Lemna explores Bouyer’s achievement in depth, showing that at the heart of his venture was a deep, contemplative penetration into God’s mediation to the world—his creation, sustenance, and redemption of creation in the Wisdom of the Eternal Son. Bouyer is a decisive resource for theologians wanting to develop the Christian understanding of the Trinity and creation based on tradition but in dialogue with modern cosmological thought. The Trinitarian Wisdom of God: Louis Bouyer’s Theology of the God-World Relationship gets to the heart of Louis Bouyer’s theology of the God-World relationship more deeply than any other has done before. In doing so, Lemna recovers a great theologian at his best.




Hegel, Husserl and the Phenomenology of Historical Worlds


Book Description

GWF Hegel famously described philosophy as 'its own time apprehended in thoughts', reflecting a desire that we increasingly experience, namely, the desire to understand our complex and fast-changing world. But how can we philosophically describe the world we live in? When Hegel attempted his systematic account of the historical world, he needed to conceive of history as rational progress to allow for such description. After the events of the twentieth century, we are rightfully doubtful about such progress. However, in the twentieth century, another German philosopher, Edmund Husserl, attempted a similar project when he realised that a philosophical account of our human experience requires attending to the historical world we live in. According to Husserl, the Western world is a world in crisis. In this book, Tanja Staehler explores how Husserl thus radicalises Hegel’s philosophy by providing an account of historical movement as open. Husserl’s phenomenology allows thinking of historical worlds in the plural, without hierarchy, determined by ethics and aesthetics. Staehler argues that, through his radicalization of Hegel’s philosophy, Husserl provides us with a historical phenomenology and a coherent concept of a culture that points to the future for phenomenology as a philosophy that provides the methodological grounding for a variety of qualitative approaches in the humanities and social sciences.







Bergson and Phenomenology


Book Description

Examining the revival of Bergsonism for phenomenology, leading scholars of both areas inaugurate a dialogue long overdue. By assessing phenomenology's readings of Bergson and Bergsonian challenges to phenomenological methods, the essays in this volume explore anew the issues of central concern in contemporary continental philosophy.




Reshaping Ecumenical Theology


Book Description

Reshaping Ecumenical Theology is a major contribution to the study of the Church. It provides clear and authoritative orientation for the student, while probing deep into a range of key issues in ecclesiology and ecumenical dialogue from a critical standpoint that will stimulate discussion among scholars and ecumenists. It reclaims some old orthodoxies, while challenging some new ones, and points to a deeper and more personal engagement with the major traditions of the Christian Church as the way to fuller unity and more effective mission. Reshaping Ecumenical Theology argues that the values of difference and diversity and the priority of mission and evangelisation must shape our picture of unity. It transcends old arguments about 'establishment', by showing that all churches are compelled to develop a constructive relationship to the modern state, wherever possible, if they are to be effective in mission. The central ecumenical notion of 'reception' is re-interpreted, not as the faithful unquestioningly receiving the teaching of church authorities, but as the process whereby the whole Church discerns the truth of new developments. The mantra 'baptism is complete sacramental initiation' is challenged, and the place of confirmation is secured within a total process of initiation. The ministry of the episcopate is affirmed, but only by being related to the gospel on which the Church is founded. The nature of communion is examined and the imperative of maintaining it against divisive tendencies is affirmed. 'The hermeneutics of unity' shows that we are shaped by each other through the conflict or rivalry of traditions: 'We are what we are because you are what you are'.




Narrativity, Coherence and Literariness


Book Description

The search for the defining qualities of narrative has produced an expansive range of definitions which, largely unconnected with each other, obscure the notion of “narrativity” rather than clarifying it. The first part of this study remedies this shortcoming by developing a graded macro model of narrativity which serves three aims. Firstly, it provides a structured overview of the field of narrative elements and processes. Secondly, it facilitates the classification of narratological approaches by locating them on different stages of narrativity. Finally, it focuses attention on narrative dynamics as interpretative processes by which readers seek to produce narrative coherence. The second part of this study identifies three different narrative dynamics which characterise Laclos’s "Dangerous Connections," Kafka’s "Castle" and Toussaint’s novels. Wagner bases her analyses of these dynamics not only on the texts themselves but also on the ways in which literary scholars imbue the texts with narrative coherence. This book provides a long overdue systematisation of the jumbled field of theories of narrativity and opens new perspectives on the difficult relationship between narrative theory and interpretation.




The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Globalization


Book Description

This is the first handbook to provide a comprehensive coverage of the main approaches that theorize translation and globalization, offering a wide-ranging selection of chapters dealing with substantive areas of research. The handbook investigates the many ways in which translation both enables globalization and is inevitably transformed by it. Taking a genuinely interdisciplinary approach, the authors are leading researchers drawn from the social sciences, as well as from translation studies. The chapters cover major areas of current interdisciplinary interest, including climate change, migration, borders, democracy and human rights, as well as key topics in the discipline of translation studies. This handbook also highlights the increasing significance of translation in the most pressing social, economic and political issues of our time, while accounting for the new technologies and practices that are currently deployed to cope with growing translation demands. With five sections covering key concepts, people, culture, economics and politics, and a substantial introduction and conclusion, this handbook is an indispensable resource for students and researchers of translation and globalization within translation and interpreting studies, comparative literature, sociology, global studies, cultural studies and related areas.




The Metaphysical Compass


Book Description

An in-depth analysis of the different worldviews available to us in today's world, their underlying metaphysics, and the symbolism they use to convey their doctrines. The Metaphysical Compass is an exercise in both analysis and synthesis, delving deeply into complex religious and philosophical issues while providing summarized access to vast amounts of information that is difficult for non-specialists to access. It is based on the incontrovertible premise that, especially after the globalization of knowledge, we find ourselves in a highly complex world in which different incompatible worldviews uneasily coexist. To guide us in our search, the book focuses on the metaphysical answers underlying the different worldviews available to us, whether religious, mystical, esoteric, philosophical, or scientific. It also stresses the importance of symbolism in transmitting these doctrines, and its undeniable and growing prevalence in today's mass media and popular culture. The Metaphysical Compass was designed as an enjoyable synthesis capable of conveying a large amount of information in a visual and summarized, but not dumbed down, way. Furthermore, the book contains plenty of hyperlinks (digital editions) and notes through which those interested can expand their knowledge on specific topics. It is an ideal book for those with little time to investigate and confront the great questions of life. Also for those interested in discovering all the possible solutions to the oldest philosophical question of all, which lies at the core of each and every worldview: the conflict between the One and the Many. The Metaphysical Compass includes: .: A massive repository of knowledge (both ancient and modern), highly structured and profusely illustrated, designed to clear up all your metaphysical doubts and guide you in navigating the complexities of the modern world and its myriad worldviews. .: A comparative table with the 41 main current worldviews, in which their particularities are described, their main symbols discussed, and their central metaphysical beliefs defined, compared, and categorized. .: 15 summary diagrams that explain the complete argument of the book in a clear and pleasant visual way. .: Graphics highlighting the prevalence of certain recurrent metaphysical doctrines in modern popular culture.




Teilhard Lexicon


Book Description

Written to enable researchers and students to better understand the specialised language of Teilhard's transdisciplinary approach, which he found himself compelled to develop as a means of expressing that extraordinary vision of a universe in process of convergence towards a cosmic centre of unity he identifies with the Cosmic Christ.