Description
Book SynopsisVulnerability is at the core of the political drama of our time. Countering conventional approaches, this book presents human vulnerability as a source of political community and a potential for political agency in precarity. Analyzing Christian celebrations of Christmas and Easter in contexts of struggle, it shows how religious resources inspire precarious politics. Combining critical political theory, liberation theology, and lived religion, Sturla J. Stålsett sees in such celebrations a ‘political sacralization’ of vulnerability and a ‘dispossession of divinity.’
Trade ReviewTaking vulnerability as starting point for constructive agency and community radically transforms political theology. The author’s powerful global experience and intellectual depth make this book essential reading for anybody concerned with theological attention to lived religion, emancipation, justice, love, and peace in the pressing conflicts of our world. - Werner G. Jeanrond, Em. Professor of Theology, University of Oslo.
Table of ContentsPreface: Fires in Paradise 1 Project: A Political Theology of Vulnerability 1 Questions 2 Definitions 3 Contribution 4 Procedure 2 Precarity: Political Agency and Community in Crisis 1 Precariat 2 Multitude 3 Bare life 4 Immunity 5 Necropolitics 6 Precarity 3 Precarious: Reconsidering Vulnerability 1 Provocation 2 Grievability 3 Differentiation 4 Agency 5 Relationality 6 Responsibility 7 Community 8 Recognition 9 Dispossession 10 Resilience 11 Resistance 12 Performativity 13 Affirmation 14 Framing 4 Precious: Religion in Precarious Times 1 Secularization 2 Security 3 Deprivation 4 Responses 5 Ultimacy 6 Wrongness 7 ‘Handling’ 5 Preaching: Sacralizing Vulnerability 1 Birthdays 2 San Jorge 3 Divine Dispossession 4 Vulnerable God 5 Sacralizing Vulnerability 6 Subversive Salvation 7 Community-in-Vulnerability 8 Infrapolitics 6 Prayer: Spirituals Confronting Crucifixion 1 Spirituals 2 Community 3 Strange Fruit 4 Recrucifixions 5 Wounds 6 Healing Sub Contrario 7 Amnesty 8 Love 7 Promise: The Vulnerable Basis of Political Agency and Community References Index
