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Background: Issues of identity, interdependence, relationality and violence are far larger than the human species alone, although humanity has often pretended as if it alone were the beneficiaries of studying such ideas. Aim: Pedagogically, the complexity of existence beyond human being must influence the traditional humanities curriculum or risk further isolation and alienation within humanity-dominant narratives. Setting: As climate change continues to alter our comprehension of what is truly at stake in the survival of life on this planet, however, humankind needs a complete rethinking of its relationship with the multiple forms of life that dwell alongside it, as well as the traditional division between the humanities and the sciences within academic settings. Methods: It is with this scenario before us that I turn to the work of Bruno Latour who reconceives of humanity's relationship with nature as an interdisciplinary and boundary-crossing project, one that has deep pedagogical implications. Results: I demonstrate how Latour's collaborative and highly original work ranges across disciplines and provides new ways to contemplate research in academia. Conclusion: Latour's thought moves beyond polarising anti-humanist language and towards a way to limit the sovereign claims of humanity, opening discourse towards other non-human participants.

This essay addresses Jean-Luc Nancy’s “deconstruction of Christianity” and how what Christianity proclaims through enacting a deconstruction of itself brings an end to the western, hegemonic hold that Christian imperialism has perpetuated for centuries. Nancy, for his part, takes up the name of Christianity insofar as it is a religious phenomenon that signals a trajectory of thought in the West that must be discerned as providing an “exit from religion and of the expansion of the atheist world.” Since deconstructing the dominant narratives of the West means deconstructing the myth of a sovereign, autonomous deity whose reign, Nancy declares, has reached its end, Christianity utilizes its own kenotic narrative to point toward the end of religion and Eurocentrism at the same time.

A good deal of opposition to critical theory in modern theology is founded upon a defensive shift against the erosion of authority, an allegiance to the tautological grounds of justifying what ultimately cannot be justified: why I belong here, in this particular community, and not over there in another one. By being more attentive to the nature of the ‘necessary illusions’ that community must adhere to, while also learning to listen more attentively to the marginalized voices within a given community, we might be able to move beyond the rigid dualisms that typically characterize ecclesial politics (e.g. conservative versus liberal) by reducing the complexity of our identities. By engaging a Pauline philosophy of selves divided against themselves, we can locate a more viable ecclesial model that challenges current and historical notions of belonging to a community [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay addresses Jean-Luc Nancy's "deconstruction of Christianity" and how what Christianity proclaims through enacting a deconstruction of itself brings an end to the western, hegemonic hold that Christian imperialism has perpetuated for centuries. Nancy, for his part, takes up the name of Christianity insofar as it is a religious phenomenon that signals a trajectory of thought in the West that must be discerned as providing an "exit from religion and of the expansion of the atheist world." Since deconstructing the dominant narratives of the West means deconstructing the myth of a sovereign, autonomous deity whose reign, Nancy declares, has reached its end, Christianity utilizes its own kenotic narrative to point toward the end of religion and Eurocentrism at the same time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The work of Giorgio Agamben could perhaps best be described as an original extension of the onto-theological critique that has dominated much of the last century's philosophical endeavors. For him, this fundamental critical perspective extends itself toward the deconstruction of traditional significations, including the boundaries said to exist between the human and the animal as well as between the human and the divine. By repeatedly unveiling these arbitrary divisions as being a result of the state of 'original sin' in which we dwell, Agamben aims to advance philosophical discourse 'beyond representation' and toward a 'pure' encounter with the myriad of faces always ever present before us. In this sense, he works toward redefining 'revelation' as being little more than an exposure of our animality, something which indeed lies now unveiled at the real root of our being. This animality is in fact locateable beyond the separation of being into form and content, a division which is rather indebted to the onto-theological representations that have governed the discourse of being. By focusing instead on the manner in which paradigms could be said to operate over and against the (sovereign) rule of representations, he articulates a movement from particularity to particularity that resists the temptation to universalize our language on being. In this sense, then, the analogical logic of the paradigm, expressed always through the absolutely singular, exposes the beings which we all are before another, rather than violently condense any given ('whatever') being into a formal representation. By thus determining the contours of the paradigmatic expression, this essay intends to unite several 'loose' strands of Agamben's thought in order to demonstrate the consequence of this line of inquiry: that the end of representation, often criticized as a form of political nihilism, is the only way in which to develop a justifiable ethics, one beyond the traditional binary divisions of subject and object, or of universal and particular. In the end, as Agamben illustrates repeatedly, there is only the 'thingness' that each thing is, and which must be safeguarded in its precarity, thus paving the way (through a messianic intervention) for an ethical discourse to appear. It is a final gesture toward the messianic, then, toward a religiously-inflected terminology which hovers over his entire oeuvre, that will ultimately guide Agamben's 'political' project back toward its canonical moment most clearly identifiable within the Christian heritage. As his reading of Benjamin's relationship to Saint Paul indicates, there is much to be discerned for him in the transition from Judaic law (with its representational logic) to Christian 'forms of life' (with its paradigmatic focus). Rather than be content with a simple re-affirmation of Christian claims, however, Agamben deftly maneuvers his own position toward one of exposing the logic of Christianity as that which reveals a deep investment in a pantheistic worldview, one which theology can no longer afford to ignore. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses upon the relationship between the German Egyptologist Jan Assmann and the German-Jewish late modern literary critic Walter Benjamin as regards the movement from canons to messianic forces. It therefore traces the evolution in Assmann's thought from issues surrounding the processes of canonization to his development of a form of "weak thought" in relation to religious violence before then turning to Benjamin's portrayal of a "weak messianic force" moving through history which is only conceivable in close proximity to a scriptural legacy and a divine (or "pure") violence, as he saw it. Additionally, this paper draws a line connecting the work of each in order to solidify the structure and function of the monotheistic canon as being not only at the heart of western civilization, but also at the heart of all cultural transmissions today. That is, the formal elements at work in the canonical-messianic relationship are universally applicable for all identity formation of modern subjectivities, whether political, cultural or religious, insofar as the entire realm of representations appears to be governed by a canonical sense of normativity. A closer inspection then of how these elements were brought together in their original religious context might therefore better enable us to discern the effects that canons have upon the construction of identities in a globalized world today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]