Phenomenology is one of the most important developments in philosophy in the twentieth century that has had a deep impact on Theology and Religious Studies. The reading group seeks to engage with some of the fundamental concepts of phenomenology that underlie much work in Theology and the Phenomenology of Religion. This term we hope to read two texts. The recent new realism and speculative materialism has questioned the correlationalism (between consciousness and world) in Phenomenology. To get some perspective on this critique we will read Quentin Meillassoux’s After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency (London: Continuum 2009). After this short book we will read Zizek’s Less than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism (London and New York: Verso, 2012).
Archives: Lectures
Truth in Theology
Dr. Ankur Barua (Cambridge)
Professor Keith Ward (Oxford)
Dr. Jessica Frazier (Oxford and Kent)
The question of ‘truth’ in Theology has long been contested. What do we mean by truth in a theological context? How do we assess competing truth claims from theologies of different religions? Can we assess such claims and does the question even make sense? This seminar intends to explore the question of theological truth in relation to Hinduism specifically but drawing on ways that Christianity has dealt with the issue.
Sanskrit Prelims (MT15)
The course provides an introduction to Sanskrit for the preliminary paper of the Theology and Religion Faculty in Elementary Sanskrit. The class is designed to introduce students of Theology and Religion to the basics of Sanskrit grammar, syntax and vocabulary. By the end of the course students will have competency in translating simple Sanskrit and reading sections of the Bhagavad-gītā and passages from other texts. The course book will be Maurer’s The Sanskrit Language.
Readings in Early Modern Bengali Texts: Session three (MT15)
We will read sections from key devotional and theological Vaiṣṇava texts in Bengali from the early modern period and discuss their meaning. Some proficiency in Bengali is a requirement.
Hinduism 1: Sources and Development – Lecture three (MT15)
This lecture series provides some basic material for Theology FHS Paper 20, “Hinduism 1: Sources and Development.’ These lectures offer a thematic and historical introduction to the sources and early development of ‘Hindu’ traditions from their early formation to the early medieval period. We will explore the formation of Hindu traditions through textual sources, such as the Vedas, Upaniṣads and Bhagavad Gītā, along with the practices and social institutions that formed classical Hindu traditions. The course will include an introduction to Hindu philosophy. A detailed reading list will be supplied at the start of the lectures, which will be based loosely around Gavin Flood’s Introduction to Hinduism (CUP 1996).
Sanskrit Prelims:Session four (MT15)
The course provides an introduction to Sanskrit for the preliminary paper of the Theology and Religion Faculty in Elementary Sanskrit. The class is designed to introduce students of Theology and Religion to the basics of Sanskrit grammar, syntax and vocabulary. By the end of the course students will have competency in translating simple Sanskrit and reading sections of the Bhagavad-gītā and passages from other texts. The course book will be Maurer’s The Sanskrit Language.
The Contested Legacy of Swami Vivekananda
This lecture examines Swami Vivekananda in his time and ours. It will look in particular at his contributions to the work of the Parliament of the World’s Religions, and the “militant Hinduism” that he preached, which interpreted fairly, differs considerably from contemporary Hindu nationalism.
Joseph Prabhu is Professor of Philosophy and Religion at California State University, Los Angeles and occasional Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago. He is active as both a scholar and a peace activist. He has edited The Intercultural Challenge of Raimon Panikkar (Orbis Books, 1996) and co-edited the two-volume Indian Ethics: Classical Traditions and Contemporary Challenges (Ashgate Publishing Co, 2007; Springer and Oxford University Press, India, 2016).He has authored Raimon Panikkar as a Modern Spiritual Master (Orbis Books, 2015). He has been a Senior Fellow of the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University and of the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago. He has also been co-editor of ReVision from 1995-2003, and a contributing editor of Zygon. He is the past President of the international Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy, 2008-2010, and the Program Chair for the Melbourne Parliament of the World’s Religions, 2009. He served on the Board of Trustees and the Executive Committee of the Council of a Parliament of the World’s Religions from 2005-2011. He has lectured and taught at more than seventy universities either as visiting professor or as guest lecturer in Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe and the United States.
Readings in the Netra Tantra: Session four (MT15)
The Netra Tantra is an important text of Śaiva tantrism popular in Kashmir some time between the eighth and eleventh centuries CE. These readings will use the KSTS edition along with two manuscripts from Nepal.
Readings in Phenomenology: Session four (MT15)
Phenomenology is one of the most important developments in philosophy in the twentieth century that has had a deep impact on Theology and Religious Studies. The reading group seeks to engage with some of the fundamental concepts of phenomenology that underlie much work in Theology and the Phenomenology of Religion. This term we hope to read two texts. The recent new realism and speculative materialism has questioned the correlationalism (between consciousness and world) in Phenomenology. To get some perspective on this critique we will read Quentin Meillassoux’s After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency (London: Continuum 2009). After this short book we will read Zizek’s Less than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism (London and New York: Verso, 2012).
Theories of Life and the Origins of Religion
Religion and the Philosophy of Life Series.
This introductory lecture will examine the idea that the bio-energy of life itself is expressed through religious practices (that are teleological) and theologies that reflect the meanings of practice (and so the meanings of life itself and life mediated through language). In short, religions can be fruitfully accounted for in terms of the transformation of face-to-face social cognition at the level of culture that in turn controls face-to-face interactions through law or religious injunction and narrative.
This entails an empirical claim that the origins of religion can be explained in terms of the evolution of human interactivity that we call social cognition, a historical claim that philosophies of life have been articulated in the history of religions particularly through scholasticism, and a philosophical claim, itself grounded in the empirical and historical, that religions can be understood in terms of a realist ontology of life. All this will be set in the context of contemporary theories of life and the new realism in philosophy.
How do we account for the persistence of religion in human life? To answer this question these lectures will examine the idea of religion in relation to philosophies of life. In particular it will examine the thesis that life itself comes to expression through religions. This entails an empirical claim that the origins of religion can be explained in terms of the evolution of human interactivity, what we call social cognition; a historical claim that philosophies of life have operated within religions in terms of what we might call a transcendent teleology that have continued into secular modernity; and a philosophical claim we can account for the persistence of religion in terms of a realist ontology of life. The three lectures roughly correspond to these interrelated claims.