Description: The ancient doctrine of negative theology or apophasis-the attempt to describe God by speaking only of what cannot be said about the divine perfection and goodness-has taken on new life in the concern with language and its limits that preoccupies much postmodern philosophy, theology, and related disciplines. How does this mystical tradition intersect with the concern with material bodies that is simultaneously a focus in these areas? This volume pursues the unlikely conjunction of apophasis and the body, not for the cachet of the cutting edgebut rather out of an ethical passion for the integrity of all creaturely bodies as they are caught up in various ideological mechanisms-religious, theological, political, economic-that threaten their dignity and material well-being. The contributors, a diverse collection of scholars in theology, philosophy, history, and biblical studies, engage and deploy the resources of contextual and liberation theology, post-structuralism, postcolonialism, process thought, and feminism.
Brief description: Chris Boesel is associate professor of Christian theology at Drew Theological School in New Jersey. His work focuses on Kierkegaardian and Barthian approaches to confessional Christian faith and its relation to progressive ethical commitments to social justice in dialogue with liberation theologies and postmodern philosophies. He is the author of Risking Proclamation, Respecting Difference: Christian Faith, Imperialistic Discourse, and Abraham.
Review Quotes: This volume is a luminescent contribution to the fields of theology and philosophy, taking up from a variety of disciplinary positions the ancient little problem of "the body" and its stubborn escapes from--and creative contributions to--theological discourse. These essays clearly represent scholarly exchange even as each can stand alone; they have been masterfully edited into a work that, taken as a whole, give us at last a non-reductive mode of thinking toward embodiment.-----Laurel C. Schneider, Chicago Theological Seminary