Online June Annual Meeting 2025 Program Book

This paper offers a theological engagement with psychoanalytic communist Xandra Metcalfe’s concept of ‘primordial transsexuality’, in conversation with Gregory of Nyssa. It explores Metcalfe’s picture of an original non-binary state of all humans prior to the violence of heterosexuality and cisnormativity, a narrative she compares to the Fall. I compare this with Gregory’s belief in humanity’s primordial creation in a gender-transcendent divine image, prior to the ‘male and female’ divisions given in anticipation of the Fall. Within this, I consider on Metcalfe’s employment of the Lacanian Real—as that which resists symbolisation—alongside Gregory’s view of the Divine Essence as unnameable and unspeakable, suggesting that both Metcalfe’s primordial transsexuality and Gregory’s imago dei evade gendered subjectivity by their proximity to an extradiscursive origin. This paper thus also contributes to ongoing dialogue between theology and Lacanian thought, suggesting Gregory as a promising interlocuter for Lacan.

Although Thomas Berry proclaimed the universe to be “a communion of subjects rather than a collection of objects,” a robust case for pan-animal communion has yet to be made. While we can recognize a natural basis for communion in animals’ subjective interactivity, a merely transactional logic governs the temporal milieu. We can incorporate the existential freedom which underlies communion, however, by reference to the medieval theological voluntarism of John Duns Scotus. Scotus’s Triune God is a self-organizing—and so free—circulation of love. Correspondingly, God founds each creature on its own existential freedom. In this way, God accords it the possibility of gifting its own self in a friendship relation which cultivates some other’s own agency. In light of Scotus, then, a pan-animal subjective interactivity does indeed hold the potential to progress toward communion: A community of unique individuals pursuing, in freedom, an emancipatory love for self and other.

This paper examines The Epic of Arya, a work by Aryan supremacist, Sorbonne-trained philosopher, and esoteric Nietzschean ideologue Abir Taha, as a case study in the fascist appropriation of continental philosophy’s critique of logic and metaphysics. Drawing on her idiosyncratic reading of Nietzsche, Taha advances a mythic vision of eternal sacred Truth underpinning Aryan identity, paradoxically invoking Nietzschean themes of becoming while reinstating the very metaphysical fixity Nietzsche resists. Situating The Epic of Arya alongside scholarly accounts of Nietzsche’s rejection of logic and metaphysics, and broader concerns about the co-option of post-structuralist thought by reactionary movements, this paper argues that Taha’s work exemplifies how anti-rationalist philosophical currents can be weaponized to support discourses of hierarchy, discrimination, and exclusion. By extension, it contributes to ongoing academic dialogue about whether continental philosophy’s critique of logic inadvertently creates conceptual space for the resurgence of authoritarian political theologies under the guise of postmodern flux.

This paper analyzes the use of Google Reviews in the Persian Gulf to search for, rate, and review mosques and other Muslim houses of worship. Focusing on mosques in four cities – Abu Dhabi, Doha, Kuwait City, and Riyadh – it uses Google review recommendations to identify five mosques in each city, examining the posted ratings and reviews. The analysis shows how reviews braid together religious users’ goals of finding a location for prayer and of providing guidance to fellow believers; and with religious and non-religious users’ reflections on visiting these mosques as tourists. it argues that reviews form a communal space of shared belief as well as a space that reflects and amplifies the importance of ‘mosque tourism’ as a pious and cultural practice. More broadly, it sheds light on broader trends in Gulf Muslim religious life-worlds, and how they take shape across a continuum of online and offline experiences. 

Heeding Sylvia Wynter’s call to go beyond the contemporary “descriptive statement” of being Man that stands on the racist/classist/patriarchal/colonial/White-Christian centric ontology (Wynter, 2003), this paper analyzes the sociopolitical and religious perspectives of the indigenous community in North Kendeng Mountains of Central Java Province that stand at the intersection of Islam and Saminism (an indigenous religion established within the crucible of anti-colonial struggles in 19th century Indonesia). The paper proposes to see the Islam/Saminism matrix in the life of the North Kendeng indigenous community. It looks at how Islam/Saminism is an affirmation of being human – instead of the hegemonic “descriptive statement” of Man - that is always in relation with Ibu Bumi (lit. Mother Earth). In this way, the paper argues that the Islam/Saminism matrix provides an ontotheological conception of ‘human’ in opposition to what Wynter called as the master code of “Man2,” and serves as an epistemological foundation for being human.

Scholarship on modern Islam has largely focused on Egypt and South Asia, overlooking Palestine’s intellectual history. This paper integrates Palestine into broader Islamic networks by examining three late Ottoman Nabulsi ulama: Yousef al-Nabahani, Bakr al-Tamimi, and Abdullah Sufan al-Qaddumi. These scholars, rooted in established religious lineages, defended traditionalist thought against reformist, missionary, and Wahhabi challenges during Sultan Abdulhamid II’s reign. Their efforts centered on preserving Ash‘ari and Maturidi theology, traditional four schools of law, and Sufi traditions. Applying network theory, this study demonstrates that their discourse evolved through intellectual exchanges across Istanbul, Damascus, Aleppo, and Cairo, though Palestinian ulama placed unique emphasis on countering Christian missionary activities. By positioning them within the Hamidian traditionalist network, this paper argues that Palestinian scholars were not passive provincial figures but active participants in shaping Ottoman religious and political discourse, contributing to a more nuanced understanding of Islamic traditionalism in the Ottoman empire.

This paper investigates the growing interest in Sufism among young Egyptians after the 2011 uprising. It is based on 63 interviews with middle-class Muslim Egyptians in 2018 and 2019 and ethnographic research from 2021 to 2023. Most interlocutors believed that the revolution failed to bring about the political and socioeconomic goals they hoped to achieve. Despair became the norm amongst these youth. As a result, while some started questioning religious authorities and practices and others turned to nonbelief, several interviewees turned to Sufism to maintain a relationship with God that was not reliant on external markers of piety that others can judge. Some followed a traditional Sufi path, while others followed practitioners who incorporated teachings from Eastern wisdoms and New Age teachings. This paper explores how religious sensibilities change due to political upheaval, with Sufism being seen, by some, as a last recourse before losing faith in God or Islam.   

Friedrich Schleiermacher is perhaps a curious figure with whom to reflect on the reception of the Nicene Creed in the modern era, since he was not shy about pointing out the difficulties in trinitarian thought that are enshrined in the Nicene Creed, and his Glaubenslehre (1830/31) called for a fresh Protestant treatment of the doctrine. This paper complicates the prevalent interpretation of Schleiermacher’s doctrine of God and trinitarian thought, which sees his work as marginal to the discussion, instead suggesting not only that Schleiermacher’s dogmatics had an enduring influence in this regard but also that his work has significance for constructive theology in the present era.

This essay examines the trinitarian theology of nineteenth-century Lutheran theologian Gottfried Thomasius, contextualizing his work within the theological and philosophical challenges to traditional trinitarian doctrine during the German Enlightenment. While Thomasius is primarily known for his controversial kenotic Christology, this analysis focuses on his doctrine of God and defense of Nicene orthodoxy. The essay argues that Thomasius sought to preserve and extend the Niceno-Constantinopolitan trinitarian consensus by developing a robust concept of divine personality (Persönlichkeit) in response to modern philosophical critiques. This study demonstrates how Thomasius articulated a trinitarian theology that maintained both divine unity and personal distinction through his innovative concept of "absolute personality." 

Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 260–339/340) noted that by the 320s, many orthodox Christian communities in the Roman East had accepted the Catholic Epistles, including James, into their liturgies. This marked a shift, as earlier Church leaders had questioned their authenticity. While modern scholars have debated the factors influencing this Eastern reception, suggesting everyone from Augustine, Jerome, to even Athanasius of Alexandria, this paper, however, argues that Origen (ca. 185–254) played a key role in establishing the Epistle of James as scripture. Origen was the first orthodox scholar to cite James explicitly as scripture and even defended its apostolic authority against opposition. Through his influence on his students, Origen likely contributed to the epistle’s growing acceptance in the Roman East, bridging the gap between its early marginalization and its later recognition by Eusebius’s time. This paper reassesses Origen’s role in the Eastern reception of the Epistle of James.

This paper examines two Coptic Orthodox rites—the medieval Rite of the Jar and contemporary exorcism sessions—as improvisational extensions of the baptismal liturgy. Though separated by centuries, both rites operate as liturgical responses to the porous boundaries between Christians and Muslims in Egypt. The Rite of the Jar, used to reconcile those deemed apostates or those who transgressed intercommunal sexual norms, reflects a medieval ecclesial effort to police communal boundaries while avoiding the redundancy of rebaptism. Contemporary public exorcisms, by contrast, invert the logic of hidden liturgy, projecting the proclamation of Christ’s lordship into contested public space. Both rites reveal how liturgical performance becomes a mode of theological agency and boundary work in minoritized religious settings. Drawing on ritual theory and historical anthropology, this paper argues that these rites improvise upon baptismal grammar to negotiate identity, perform resistance, and mediate the tension between ecclesial self-understanding and interfaith proximity.

The Antiochian Orthodox Church of Eastern Orthodox family, despite being one of the oldest Christian communities, composes new liturgical services, based on older ones and put in the frames of its local liturgical tradition. The services are written in Arabic and music is composed in the Byzantine tones of chanting. The paper aims to present two services based on the Lamentations of Matins of the Great Saturday: Lamentations of st. Jacob of Hamatoura and of the Holy Cross. Both services are contemporary and creat for special ocassions: the first one for the day of st. Jacob i. e. 13th Octobeer and the second one for the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, i. e. 14th September. The presentation would talk about liturgical and linguistical aspects of the services, as also about their practice.

Armenian liturgical services, such as the "Blessing of the Fields," make a link between community and place explicit. The embodied, sensorial experience of liturgy makes a particular Christian community present in a specific place. It also presents the fullest expression of that community's theology. This paper explores a handful of Armenian Apostolic Christian liturgical services that focus on blessings of fields, crops, and cultivated land in order to argue that they connect community and land in a distinctive liturgical vision that is both ecological and indigenous. The paper argues that the liturgical practice of the Armenian Apostolic Church can, in the instances described, function as an indigenous ecotheology. It does so, the paper suggests, in ways that can advance discussions both of ecotheology and global indigeneity.

The history of the Protestant Church in Germany (Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland, EKD), a federation of regional Lutheran, Reformed, and United denominations, provides a counterpoint to the recent resurgence of Christian nationalism across the U.S. and Europe. Following widespread Protestant support for the Nazi dictatorship, the EKD became a locus for post-1945 movements to restrain state power and pursue reconciliation with Germany’s wartime enemies. My presentation argues that initiatives toward ecumenical dialogue during the years around 1960, both among Protestants across the Iron Curtain and between Protestants and Jews in West Germany, became key drivers of this transformation. Rather than a simple story of deradicalization, however, I propose that ecumenism and Christian nationalism remained entangled. Even as postwar ecumenical initiatives challenged exclusionary doctrines of national salvation, they reinscribed a longstanding tenet of German Protestant nationalism: the conviction that the Protestant confession served as the source of Germans' shared political values.

The war waged by Russia against Ukraine has profoundly reshaped the country’s religious landscape, intensifying interconfessional and state-church relations. This research examines the ongoing process of delegitimizing the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) affiliated with Russia and the broader decolonization of Ukraine’s religious sphere. While state measures to limit Moscow-linked religious influence are seen as essential for national security, they have also raised concerns about religious freedoms. The mass transition of parishes to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) reflects both spiritual and political motivations. Additionally, the growing role of the OCU in military chaplaincy underscores its expanding societal influence. Internationally, the Russian Orthodox Church faces isolation, further shifting Orthodox dynamics. This study explores the tensions between national security, religious autonomy, and international norms, analyzing how the war is reshaping Ukraine’s confessional identity while raising complex questions about faith, politics, and decolonization.

This paper examines Rosemary Radford Ruether’s feminist theology in relation to the sex-gender distinction, arguing that while she maintains the stability of biological sex, her framework struggles to separate sex from gender. By incorporating insights from contemporary biological studies, Ruether’s emphasis on sexed embodiment can be maintained while avoiding rigid gender binaries and accounting for transgender embodiment. The paper explores her interpretation of Ancient religious myths and their symbolic gender roles, foregrounding inconsistencies in her treatment of gendered symbolism versus human gender constructs. It engages with biological research to challenge essentialist views of sex and gender and modify Ruether’s view. This leads to the suggestion that, when symbolizing the divine through sexed/gendered qualities, this should be done by figuring them as a “scatterplot” of female-typical and male-typical traits. Ruether’s revised perspective, informed by biology, offers a middle ground between Marcella Althaus-Reid’s constructivist approach and Pope John Paul II’s essentialism. 

This paper proposes a multi-sited discussion of contemporary placemaking practices along Jewish heritage routes in Europe and the Mediterranean, drawing on original ethnographic research conducted at archaeological immersion pools (mikva’ot) in historic Jewish quarters. Now preserved by museums and municipal authorities as sites of national cultural and historical patrimony, hundreds of former immersion pools are largely memorialized as sacred spaces. Theatrical reenactments, graphic novels, and holographic projections featuring nude or semi-nude women bathing in stepped pools in France and Catalonia, for example, speak to deeply held fantasies of the “Jewess” descending to her mysterious bathing rites in distant times. 

This paper throws light on the boundaries of archaeological knowledge production vis-à-vis modern interpretations of the historic built environment and the generative but considerable limitations of ethnographic methodologies in attempting to reconstruct the phenomenological and embodied experiences of purity rites in ancient contexts.

Fertilized embryos, especially those that are “left over” from assisted reproductive technologies, as well as remains after medication abortions at home, have become a politicized part of social, cultural, as well as religious life of reproduction in the United States. What happens when the way we view waste, and specifically “remains,” in a Western, Christian society, like the United States, becomes imbued with discourses of religious veracity, nationalism, and population control? In The Accursed Share, Georges Bataille describes blood and tissue from the vagina (menstrual blood, birth, etc.) as dejected by Western society –we are disgusted by and scared of it, but at the same time we do not know what to do with it. Based on this notion, this project begins to uncover why, in our modern society, the fear of “remains” begins to control the ways we police pregnancy and reproductive capacities, through both religious and moral discourses.