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The field of process relational thought, as articulated most foundationally in Alfred North Whitehead's 1929 monograph Process and Reality, has enjoyed a varied and diverse near-century's worth of growth across fields of philosophy, theology, and beyond. Its central flexibility as a metaphysical framework characterized by an understanding of process as perpetual becoming allows it to traverse and contradict, in a postsecularly-reflective posture, classically held assumptions about the distinctions between the religious/spiritual and the secular, what it means for something to be sacred or hold a sacral significance, and how the multifaceted modern world interacts with both categories when the lines between them have become less blurred than they are ever-intermingling and in constant flux. From this orienting point, process thought stands as a fertile conversation partner for the literary works of Virginia Woolf, a modernist author whose categorization as "secular" is historically affirmed but for whom, within a postsecular present-and the understandings of cultural movements therein redefined-such a label begs reevaluation. By intentionally bringing process thought to bear upon the works of Woolf-specifically The Waves, To the Lighthouse, and Mrs Dalloway-said reevaluation proceeds in earnest as the parallels and interconnections between the two result in the revelation of novel and generative insights about both Woolf and process relationality alike that add fruitfully to scholarship and inquiry regarding both entities, are poised to inspire future work done in both disciplines, and demonstrate the pursuit of interdisciplinarity as a viable and generative means of rigorous academic inquiry.

This thesis considers the condition of the contemporary art-object-particularly the contemporarily transgressive art-object-by interrogating popular phenomenological assumptions and broader cultural fictions that artists who produce art-objects "authentic" to their positionality necessarily produce ethically and aesthetically superior art. Authenticity, for the purposes of this project, does not indicate provenance, rather, authenticity describes a discourse wherein an artist's perceived relationship to their work determines the success, or failure, of that work (what I posit as the "authenticity-metric"). By collapsing the artist and the art-object, this framework suggests artists ideally represent and engage with subjects intimately known and understood by the artist. This thesis interrogates the malleability of these rhetorics of authenticity, and the myriad ways authenticity polices the bounds of acceptable representation within contemporary art. Ultimately, I posit rhetorics of authenticity as acting as arbiters of what art is permitted to be made public. In response, this thesis seeks to provide a restorative way of thinking about transgressively "inauthentic" art-objects as engaged in provocative-and productive-acts of disturbance. As documented within this thesis, the censure faced by artists who resist authenticity-metrics either in the form of experimentation with content "inauthentic" to their experience or by representational "inauthenticity" suggests that "inauthentic" art-objects act as contemporary sites of disturbance. Despite the potential for disturbing art-objects to cause harm, this thesis explores and ultimately embraces the possibility of salutary forms of disturbance. From the aggressive horror of William Christenberry's recusant Ku Klux Klan Dolls and Marlene Dumas' violently disempowered female subject(s), to the more subtle disturbance of Jeff Koons' eerily giddy, plasticine oeuvre, and Svetlana Alexievich's often morally-repugnant witnesses, the case studies I examine each invest in distinct forms of disturbance, all with the potential to unsettle audiences, but in valuable ways, by encouraging viewers to question the currently dominant regime of authenticity.

This thesis integrates theology, philosophy, and film studies in a theological analysis of the filmography of Belgian filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. I propose that the Dardenne brothers create post-secular cinematic parables which may evoke theological and ethical responses in audiences' imaginations through a distinct filmmaking style I call "transcendent realism." In Part I, I outline a method for theological interpretations of cinema. Chapter 1 draws from the fields of theology, philosophy, and film theory in order to propose a dynamic interdisciplinary approach for greater appreciation of the Dardennes' "post-secular" cinema. Chapter 2 presents an original phenomenological hermeneutic for cinema based on philosopher Paul Ricoeur's description of "parable" and his concepts regarding the world behind, of, and in front of the film. I then apply this Ricoeurian parabolic hermeneutic to the Dardennes' filmography in Part II. Chapter 3 attends to the world behind the films: the Dardennes' biography, their early films, and Luc's philosophical and theological ideas found in his writings. I give particular attention to the apparent influence of philosopher Ernst Bloch on the Dardennes. Chapter 4 addresses the world of the films through close formal analysis of 'The Son' (2002), 'The Kid with a Bike' (2011), and 'Young Ahmed' (2019); I outline the distinctive traits of the Dardennes' transcendent realism. Chapter 5 explores the world in front of the films-that is, how the Dardennes' parables may reorient audiences' imaginations through affective states and cinematic ethics. I demonstrate three Dardennean theo-ethical themes through pairings of the brothers' six remaining major films. In the conclusion, I suggest that the Dardennes' cinematic parables are doing theology, what I call "theocinematics".

This thesis attempts to take seriously the claims made by many postapocalyptic zombie narratives to represent the world as it truly is, analyzing and then assessing the theological value of their depictions of the human predicament. The approach is both formal and what Gary Wolfe calls transmedial, examining the recurring narrative structures and themes of texts across several media and eras as part of 'a popular aesthetic movement and not just a body of works of fiction on similar themes', with special attention given to the films and television of the new millennium. The aim is twofold: to extend the relevance of postapocalyptic zombie fictions beyond the relatively narrow vogue of a cultural moment, and to prompt a richer appreciation of the significance of the Christian faith within contemporary society. To this end, Chapter One contextualizes the complexity of these texts' relationship to Christianity by examining first the most prominent obstacles and then the implicit promise of these texts for theological reflection. It places special emphasis on the interior tension in many of these fictions between, on the one hand, aggressively emphasizing the apparent absence of the supernatural, while on the other, frequently claiming to disclose a dimension of human experience in excess of what can be ordinarily perceived by the senses. Chapters Two and Three extend this analysis to the complex content of what these stories depict. Chapter Two considers the multilayered symbolism of decline in their conspicuous spectacles of disaster, disintegration, and death. Chapter Three examines the countervailing symbolic motifs of residual integrity and regeneration that are exhibited most prominently by characters who attempt to live genuinely human lives in spite of these circumstances. The first half of the thesis concludes by proposing a composite postapocalyptic view of the human predicament, which represents the world as ambiguous, dramatic and quite possibly, although not certainly, absurd. Chapter Four begins the theological reflection upon this kind of postapocalyptic perspective, proposing how such depictions might be illuminated by Christian theological descriptions, particularly the absurd existential circumstances brought about by the original sin. Chapter Five, reciprocally, suggests some of the ways the dramatic images of these texts might enrich theological reflection by eliciting fresh insights into the significance of the central mysteries of Christianity, especially the paradoxical already-and-not-yet of eschatological expectation. The thesis concludes by offering a final evaluation of whether, all told, the world can be truly considered postapocalyptic from a Christian perspective, arguing that although there are significant differences, postapocalyptic fictions and Christianity put forward strikingly similar pictures of the deeply self-conflicted circumstances of the common human predicament.