Hypermediations
The CMRC seminar took some time to reflect and decompress following the 2020 presidential election. Below are some of the thoughts we had and the topics we cannot let go of yet. The religious coding of Trump’s resistance to his electoral loss—a blend of prophecy, prosperity, and metaphysical discourses—is overwhelming for a religion scholar. Anthea Butler describes what’s going on […]
Last week we met in the morning of Nov. 3––the date of the presidential election in the United States––before any of us were aware just how exceptional this election coverage would be. The conversation revolved around the timely topic of Political Theology and the State of Exception. We read Giorgio Agamben‘s “The State of Exception […]
Last week during our CMRC seminar we discussed post-apocalyptic resistance within Black and Indigenous communities. We explored Afrofuturism in an article by Mark Bould, a chapter by Gerald Horne, and an episode of the podcast Faith Uncut. We read about Indigenous resistance in articles by Nick Estes for Dissent and Julian Brave NoiseCat for The […]
Last week during our CMRC seminar we discussed apocalyptic theology. We discussed two of Catherine Keller’s publications: a chapter from Apocalypse Now and Then and her article “The Heat is On” from 2007. Below are reflections on that conversation. During this week’s conversation, I found myself wondering if the current Democratic Party has constructed its […]
Last week during our CMRC seminar we discussed the climate crisis and survival in the anthropocene. Below are reflections on that conversation and a snippet of the Zoom chat. From our brief foray into reading about and discussing eco-piety, the term seems to identify a set of rituals and social practices that models a form […]
Last week during our CMRC seminar we discussed Crisis, Capitalism, and the Body. We put Federici’s Caliban and the Witch in conversation with McRuer’s “Disability Nationalism in Crip Times.” The general theme of the conversation focused on the tension between individuals & community in terms of class, care, and political theater. Below are some reflections […]
Last week during the CMRC seminar, we examined the theme of apocalyptic time. We read Philip Gorski’s “Why Evangelicals Voted for Trump: A Critical Cultural Sociology” and revisited Walter Benjamin’s “Theses on the Philosophy of History.” The conversation was influenced by current events in the U.S. and focused on white evangelicals, the deployment of religion […]
We engaged with Fred Moten’s and Stefano Harney’s The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study this week in CMRC seminar. Our conversation explored questions of fellowship and listening building off of Moten’s sermon from January 2020. Below are a few reflections we had from our conversation on these texts. Moten’s call for a politics of […]
This week we read Stewart Hoover’s latest article for IJOC on Trump’s Lafayette Square Bible photo-op. Our conversation explored the false binary between religion and politics and the importance of mediatization to contemporary politics. Hoover claims the event “was an act of mediation, a visual articulation of an argument,” while advocating that media studies needs […]
This week we participated in the international #ScholarStrike against racism. Those who participated watched remote teach-in videos, brought anti-racist conversations into their classrooms, had reflective conversations, and so much more. You can find anti-racist resources from the #ScholarStrike on YouTube, the strike’s website, and on Twitter. In this issue of the digest, CMRC fellows reflect […]