Unfortunately, Janice McRandal is unable to present her paper this Friday. It has been postponed until September 29^th. Peter Kline has kindly agreed to step in and offer what will be a fascinating paper on Kierkegaard and the imago Dei. Chris Dalton. is speaking on the topic ‘What’s Fraccing Theology Got to Do with the Mining of Coal Seam Gas?’ Friday April 7, 2017, 2pm-4pm Room W349 in Forgan Smith Building (No. 1)

Chris Dalton. ‘What’s Fraccing Theology Got to Do with the Mining of Coal Seam Gas?’ In the polarised public debate surrounding the mining of Coal Seam Gas, that industry’s use of hydraulic fracturing (fraccing) generates much emotion and conflict. This paper suggests an interrogative rather than propositional process to ‘release’ an alternative public theology approach for a post-secular age. It encompasses visiting a Divine Art Gallery, initiating a conversation about the Rights of Nature, engaging in imaginative apologetics and regarding Land as a Beloved Companion. It is an approach, however, that is not without its risks.

Peter Kline. ‘Imaging Nothing: Kierkegaard and the Imago Dei’. When considering what makes the human being uniquely human, or how it ‘images God’ within the created order, Søren Kierkegaard does not turn to Genesis 1:27, the privileged passage of the Western theological tradition. He turns instead to Matthew 6, a passage in which the reader is instructed to ‘consider the lilies of the field and the birds of the air’. In several rounds of ‘upbuilding discourses’ on this passage, Kierkegaard develops what I would call an ‘apophatic’ approach to the imago dei. The imaging of God that the human being is called to enact has no positive or stable content. It does not consist in any self-possessed capability, nor does it set the human being at the top of a hierarchically ordered creation. Rather, the human being images God only when it ‘becomes nothing’ as Kierkegaard puts it.

Chris_Peter_Seminar_April_2017 (2)

With the retirement in July of the Rev Dr Lynne Baab, the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Otago is now seeking a new Jack Somerville Lecturer in Pastoral Theology.

The closing date for applications is 30 June 2017, and it is hoped that the new appointee will begin on 1 February 2018, or as soon as possible thereafter.
https://otago.taleo.net/careersection/2/jobdetail.ftl?lang=en&job=1700719)

Information for Candidates, Jack Somerville Lecturer in Pastoral Theology (2)

UQ Studies in Religion Seminar with Chris Dalton. ‘What’s Fraccing Theology Got to Do with the Mining of Coal Seam Gas?’ In the polarised public debate surrounding the mining of Coal Seam Gas, that industry’s use of hydraulic fracturing (fraccing) generates much emotion and conflict. This paper suggests an interrogative rather than propositional process to ‘release’ an alternative public theology approach for a post-secular age. It encompasses visiting a Divine Art Gallery, initiating a conversation about the Rights of Nature, engaging in imaginative apologetics and regarding Land as a Beloved Companion. It is an approach, however, that is not without its risks.

Janice McRandal. ‘Dancing Abandonment: Theology, Time, and Eternal Memory’. For contemporary theology, time is a matter of both physics and metaphysics. Whether in the search for ‘narrated time’ (Ricoeur), or reclaimed Trinitarian accounts (Augustine), systematic theology tends towards a concept of memory to shape hermeneutical approaches to time and relativity. Contemporary dance theory frames time within a subtle dialectic of keeping and abandoning time, of embodied memory and embodied forgetfulness. However, the relationality implied — of dancer, music, movement, time, performance etc. — resists moves towards a concrete conception of time. This paper will explore the double demand of dance: a passion for the moment and stillness for time, and consider the ways through which the dancer empties out memory into an excessive ‘elsewheres’ beyond the normative questions of time, beyond all necessity.

Friday April 7, 2017, 2pm-4pm Room W349 in Forgan Smith Building (No. 1) at the University of Queensland.

Chris_Janice_Seminar_April_2017 (1)

UQ Studies in Religion Seminar Chris Dalton. ‘What’s Fraccing Theology Got to Do with the Mining of Coal Seam Gas?’ In the polarised public debate surrounding the mining of Coal Seam Gas, that industry’s use of hydraulic fracturing (fraccing) generates much emotion and conflict. This paper suggests an interrogative rather than propositional process to ‘release’ an alternative public theology approach for a post-secular age. It encompasses visiting a Divine Art Gallery, initiating a conversation about the Rights of Nature, engaging in imaginative apologetics and regarding Land as a Beloved Companion. It is an approach, however, that is not without its risks.

Janice McRandal. ‘Dancing Abandonment: Theology, Time, and Eternal Memory’. For contemporary theology, time is a matter of both physics and metaphysics. Whether in the search for ‘narrated time’ (Ricoeur), or reclaimed Trinitarian accounts (Augustine), systematic theology tends towards a concept of memory to shape hermeneutical approaches to time and relativity. Contemporary dance theory frames time within a subtle dialectic of keeping and abandoning time, of embodied memory and embodied forgetfulness. However, the relationality implied — of dancer, music, movement, time, performance etc. — resists moves towards a concrete conception of time. This paper will explore the double demand of dance: a passion for the moment and stillness for time, and consider the ways through which the dancer empties out memory into an excessive ‘elsewheres’ beyond the normative questions of time, beyond all necessity.

Friday April 7, 2017, 2pm-4pm Room W349 in Forgan Smith Building (No. 1) at the University of Queensland.