“Who is eligible to enter the inexhaustible conversation about how to experience life”? asks Michael Shapiro in this brilliant and wide-ranging book. Like a 21st century William James, Shapiro restages traditional questions of<i> </i>theology in connection with theatricality, cinema, and phenomenology. Focused on “media-involved disruptive events, either actual or imagined,” Shapiro moves from scenes of personal despair to worldly challenges like climate change. Following an itinerary both quirky and necessary, the <i>Phenomenology of Religious Belief</i> is a must-read for those working in religious studies, political theory, cinema studies, and phenomenology.

Bonnie Honig, Nancy Duke Lewis Professor, Modern Culture and Media (MCM) and Political Science, Brown University, USA

In this book, apostle Paul, Ingmar Bergman, Philip Dick, and William James hold dialogues about theophanies and the will to believe. Participating in their unexpected encounters brings striking insights in how genres and media impact narratives of religious experience and situate religious communities. A seminal approach to phenomenology of belief.

Martin Nitsche, Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague

In The Phenomenology of Religious Belief, the renowned philosopher Michael J. Shapiro investigates how art – and in particular literature and film – can impact upon both traditional interpretations and critical studies of religious beliefs and experiences.

In doing so, he examines the work of prolific and award-winning writers such as Toni Morrison, Philip K. Dick and Robert Coover. By placing their work in conjunction with critical analyses of media by the likes of Ingmar Bergman and Pier Paolo Pasolini and combining it with the work of groundbreaking thinkers such as George Canguilhem, Giorgio Agamben and Slavoj Žižek, Shapiro takes a truly interdisciplinary approach to the question of how life should be lived. His assessment of phenomenological subjectivity also leads him to question the nature of political theology and extend the criticism of Pauline theology.

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An Introductory Preface: Phenomenology and the Aesthetics of Political theology

Chapter 1: The Phenomenology of Belief: Media Technologies and Communities of Sense

Chapter 2: The Politics of Zealotry: Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Saint Paul

Chapter 3: Ingmar Bergman: Theatricality versus Theology

Chapter 4: Philip Dick’s Media-focused Religious Practices

Chapter 5: William James and Michel Foucault: The Will to Believe/the Will to truth.

Conclusion

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Michael J. Shapiro investigates how certain forms of media – especially literature and film – can influence traditional and critical studies of religious beliefs and experiences.
Analyses texts by renowned authors like Toni Morrison, Philip K. Dick and Robert Coover.
This series explores the past, present, and future of political theology. it seeks to provide a forum for new research on the theologico-political nexus including cutting-edge monographs, edited collections and translations of classic works. By privileging creative, interdisciplinary, and experimental work that resists easy categorization, this series not only re-asserts the timeliness of political theology in our epoch but seeks to extend political theological reflection into new territory: law, economics, finance, technology, media, film and art. In Political Theologies, we seek to rethink the ancient problem of political theology for the 21st century.
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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9781350243989
Publisert
2022-12-29
Utgiver
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Vekt
340 gr
Høyde
232 mm
Bredde
154 mm
Dybde
14 mm
Aldersnivå
U, 05
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
224

Biografisk notat

Michael J. Shapiro is a professor of Political Science at the University of Hawai'i, Manoa, USA. His books include The Political Sublime (2018), and Punctuations: How the Arts Think the Political (2019).