“The new patristic”

From Hardt and Negri’s Commonwealth:

The intellectual is thus not “out in front” to determine the movements of history or “on the sidelines” to critique them but rather completely “inside.” The function of the intellectual today, though in many ways radically different, shares some aspects with the one developed in the context of the patristics in the first centuries of Christianity. That was in many respects a revolutionary movement within an Empire that organized the poor against power and required not only a radical break with traditional knowledge and customs but also an invention of new systems of thought and practice, just as today we must find a way out of capitalist modernity to invent a new culture and new modes of life. Let’s call this, then, only half facetiously, a new patristic, in which the intellectual is charged with the task not only to denounce error and unmask illusions, and not only to incarnate the mechanisms of new practices of knowledge, but also, together with others in a process of co-research, to produce a new truth. (118)

Unfortunately, they don’t follow up on this at all.

The Recognitions: Book Discussion Update

I was away from a computer over the holiday, preferring instead the bright lights of Las Vegas, and failed to post an Open Thread on Friday. Sorry for that. Fortunately, I see that those who wanted to comment did so anyway. That’s good.

Anyway, this is just a quick reminder that our discussion will pick back up on Friday. The reading goal for this week is chapter 6 (page 221).

τὰ φαῦλα

One thing that my advisor really emphasized to me was that I needed to learn classical Greek and use classical Greek lexicons when reading the New Testament, because often the NT-only material can be misleading. At the same time, obviously language evolves over time, so I can never be sure whether I’m picking up on something real. Case in point: the use of “τὰ φαῦλα” in John. It’s translated as something like “evil” most times I’ve seen it so far, yet the classical lexicon indicates that it means something like “trivial.” As an example, take John 3:20:

πᾶς γὰρ ὁ φαῦλα πράσσων μισεῖ τὸ φῶς καὶ οὐκ ἔρχεται πρὸς τὸ φῶς, ἵνα μὴ ἐλεγχθῇ τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ·

For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. (NRSV)

The next verse contrasts doing φαῦλα with doing τὴν ἀλήθειαν (the truth), and it seems at least interesting to think of a contrast “true/trivial” vs. “true/evil” — then the doers of triviality wouldn’t be hiding their deeds out of some motiveless malignancy or even a fear of God’s punishment, but because they’re embarrassed that they’ve essentially wasted their lives on things that don’t matter.

And yet I could be entirely making this up.

Theology of Money Book Event Preliminaries.

Tomorrow, as most readers will already know, begins our second book event and this one focuses on Philip Goodchild’s Theology of Money. It will run 12 days, weekends excluded, and we are sure it will generate some discussion and perhaps a bit of controversy.

Readers may want to avail themselves of a recent interview with Goodchild at Rorotoko and those using the UK edition of the book will want to read through the preface to the US edition. The interview will be of help to those unfamiliar with Goodchild’s history and approach to philosophy and theology. While our book events are aimed especially to highlight theology books that fall through the cracks of mainstream theological blogs, I hope this book, which is deeply philosophical, brings out some of the philosophers too. While Goodchild is not au courant with the rhetoric of zombies and festering death, his analysis of money should be of interest to those who aim to understand capitalism through categories other than the ones neoliberal philosophical economics give.

We hope you are looking forward to the event as much as we are. See you tomorrow.

Meillassoux on not understanding Laruelle

In the midst of finishing an article on Laruelle’s non-philosophy in relation to thinking the Absolute I was revisiting the remarks of Quentin Meillassoux concerning Laruelle at the Speculative Realism event transcribed in Collapse III. In addition to making me nostalgic for a time when the very phrase “speculative realism” didn’t also signify “self-aggrandizing marketing tool-being”, but actually introduced me to three thinkers whose work I found extremely interesting, challenging, and productive of thought (two as enemies and one as an ally, and a forth whose work failed to capture my attention), it also served to remind me of the occasional series here about philosophers not understanding Laruelle.

Spinoza Research Network CFP and some Self-Aggrandizement

Beth Lord, lead coordinator of the Spinoza Research Network, has posted a postgraduate CFP that I thought would be of interest to some readers.

Spinoza and Texts
7-8 April 2010
University of Dundee, Scotland

Speakers include: Dimitris Vardoulakis, Peg Rawes, Nick Nesbitt, Nicholas Halmi

This conference focuses on uses of Spinoza in the arts and humanities, considering Spinoza’s influence by and on “texts” construed very broadly. Papers will look at Spinoza in relation to literary, historical, visual, cultural, and critical texts, and evaluate Spinoza’s contribution to multiple fields in the history of ideas and contemporary humanities.

POSTGRADUATE CALL FOR PAPERS:

Abstracts are invited from Masters and PhD students for papers of 45-minutes reading time on any topic relevant to the conference theme. This is an interdisciplinary network, and papers looking at Spinoza from a non- (or not strictly) philosophical perspective are welcome. Speakers will have their travel and accommodation expenses covered.

Please send an abstract of around 300 words, along with your name, department, institution, and email address. Deadline: 18 January 2010. (You will be informed of our decision by early Feb.) Email abstracts to Michael Burns at mykeburns@gmail.com

Information about registration and travel bursaries for this event will be available soon.

Also, some readers may be interested in some draft papers I’ve posted at my Academia.edu site. This includes some recent research where I develop my notion of a ‘transcendental ecology’, both in a general account and in relation to Deleuze & Guattari’s philosophy.

Žižek Impression

Today I visited the Post Office to send some letters to discover they had implemented a new system. At the door you took a number and then when your number was called out you went to the window to post your letter, or whatever you needed to do. But this is precisely the same as it is before with the queuing in lines – we are called in the order that we arrived, still have to wait just as long, especially at busy times. The difference is that we could wander around the comfortably seated area, maybe taking a walk around, or reading a leaflet until the number was called. And that a computer controlled the system, with pleasing graphics.

Is this not precisely the kind of authoritarian freedom one experiences in neoliberal capitalism? Queuing without queuing – the impression of freedom while you are still waiting in a well ordered line. There is no real difference between this queuing and the old system apart from the vague experience of freedom of movement a ticket system gives. It is the same system, the same problems, but with a new veneer.

How old is Jesus in the Gospel of John?

In Against All Heresies, Irenaeus claims that Jesus lived to be nearly fifty years old. The basis for this claim is John 8:57: “Then the Jews said to him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?’”

Zizek, as interviewed by a complete moron

Part 2
Part 3

My main interest in the first part of this interview is that it proves me right yet again, this time with regard to his stance toward Stalinism. Coming on the heels of his appearance with Altizer on AAR, this is almost more vindication than my system can take.

Packing my suitcase

This afternoon, I leave for Chicago, where I will be staying at The Girlfriend’s for nearly a month. Naturally, the most important consideration is what books to take, and I’ve settled on the following:

• Big Italian dictionary (for my Agamben translation, with the book in photocopied form)
• Greek New Testament and Liddell-Scott Lexicon
• Zizek: Parallax View, Violence, and Monstrosity of Christ (for an article I need to write)
• Hardt and Negri, Commonwealth (for a review)
• Gaddis, The Recognitions (for the reading group/my own enjoyment)
• Goodchild, Theology of Money (for the upcoming book event)
• Murakami, The Wind-up Bird Chronicles (for my enjoyment)
• Althaus-Reid, Indecent Theology (for my enjoyment)
• Alex Ross, The Rest is Noise (for my enjoyment/because I’ve been reading it forever and want to finish it off finally)

Should this stock prove to be inadequate, Chicago has plenty of libraries and bookstores. My biggest worry, however, is the process of carrying my bags with this many books.

And so I ask you, my readers: what would you take with you if you had to be away from your library for a month?