Another try at the liberation theology list

This list is in the order I will assign them:

Boff & Boff, Introducing Liberation Theology
Sobrino, No Salvation Outside the Poor
Gutierrez, On Job
Cone, God of the Oppressed
West, Prophesy Deliverance!
Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk
Terrell, Power in the Blood?
Pieris, An Asian Theology of Liberation
Selections from the anthology Minjung Theology: People as Subjects of History

I decided that everyone who thought Dussel was too far afield were right. Ethics and Community would’ve been great, but I felt it was too long. I still have yet to track down a copy of the Sobrino (hopefully coming tomorrow morning in the mail), so that might change — but I thought it was important to have a very contemporary text in the class to counter the widespread supposition that Liberation Theology is dead. I put Sobrino before Gutierrez because it seemed better for them to have a more solid grounding in the basic presuppositions of LT before getting to this book, which gives me my only text specifically of biblical interpretation (plus the topic of Job seems like a good conversation starter). I took out Park and put the Pieris and Minjung because I thought that would give them a broader view of what’s going on in Asia, plus I really like Minjung theology.

Class format: some lecture for background, but as much in-depth discussion as possible. The class will likely be small enough that this won’t be a big problem. (I’ve been told that the students will only balk at a heavy reading list if I don’t really build it into the class sessions themselves, making it seem like busy-work — making it strongly discussion-based seems like a good strategy, then.)

Thoughts on assignments: first of all, I’m definitely going to have some form of structured reading notes for each class meeting, both to hold them accountable for the reading and give them a handy reference for class discussion. Then I was thinking of having two or three short papers. The first would come after we’d read all the Latin American liberation theology, asking them to assess whether Ratzinger’s critique seemed fair. The second would come after getting through the feminist stuff, asking what Ruether and Terrell owe to Latin American and black theology, respectively, and where they push their forebears in new directions (they’d choose one or the other). The third would do the same with the Asian theologians vis-a-vis the Latin Americans, again choosing either Pieris or the Minjung. (If I did two instead, I’d just make them choose one out of the four options for the two-paper version.)