Karmen MacKendrick | Le Moyne College (original) (raw)
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Papers by Karmen MacKendrick
presentation for 2010 BABEL Working Group conference, "After the End"
The Matter of Voice, 2016
The Matter of Voice, 2016
Theological Seductions, 2012
Critical Research on Religion
The Matter of Voice, 2016
The Matter of Voice, 2016
The Matter of Voice, 2016
The Matter of Voice, 2016
The Matter of Voice, 2016
Analecta Hermeneutica, May 14, 2013
No Boundaries? A couple of years ago, the New York Times helpfully informed us that, at least amo... more No Boundaries? A couple of years ago, the New York Times helpfully informed us that, at least among celebrities, mystery was over. 1 We have no more stars like Greta Garbo, whose desire to be alone sustained her mystique and was no small part of her allure. Instead, we have a celebrity culture of maximum revelation-and thus, as Jean Baudrillard has reminded us, of minimum seductiveness. 2 A sort of Warholian democratization has gone along with this openness. Social media and self-absorption allow any of us some small pretense of celebrity status; we can now expose as much of ourselves online as our service providers permit. It is certainly not universally true that everyone, even everyone in the first world, is busily typing up personal blogs and posting iphone photos. Many of us still prefer not to-but given the ease of putting ourselves on virtual display, that many may be a minority. (Some degree of such exposure seems even to be demanded-what professor doesn't have a web page?) Rather than draw interest by mystery, by keeping secrets, we try to draw it by display, in a self-revelation that can become nearly frantic. Bear with me: this particular de-mystifying, silly and superficial though it seems, really does bring us into connection with mysticism-because within and despite it, something remains, nonetheless. And that something "in" us, resisting the revelation of publicity while it troubles the very possibility of inwardness, may reveal to us a deeper mystery, with deeper theological implications. The urge for display marks both a continuation of and a shift in the demands of knowability and self-exposure. Scholars, most famously Michel Foucault, often trace these demands to the monastic practice of confession, later extended into a widespread pastoral practice inclusive of lay people. Early confession is particularly a confession of the flesh-its desires, its persistent habits, and its intrusions upon the monk's urge for purity and transparency, for a body perfect in practice and in 3 An important source for this idea is
presentation for 2010 BABEL Working Group conference, "After the End"
The Matter of Voice, 2016
The Matter of Voice, 2016
Theological Seductions, 2012
Critical Research on Religion
The Matter of Voice, 2016
The Matter of Voice, 2016
The Matter of Voice, 2016
The Matter of Voice, 2016
The Matter of Voice, 2016
Analecta Hermeneutica, May 14, 2013
No Boundaries? A couple of years ago, the New York Times helpfully informed us that, at least amo... more No Boundaries? A couple of years ago, the New York Times helpfully informed us that, at least among celebrities, mystery was over. 1 We have no more stars like Greta Garbo, whose desire to be alone sustained her mystique and was no small part of her allure. Instead, we have a celebrity culture of maximum revelation-and thus, as Jean Baudrillard has reminded us, of minimum seductiveness. 2 A sort of Warholian democratization has gone along with this openness. Social media and self-absorption allow any of us some small pretense of celebrity status; we can now expose as much of ourselves online as our service providers permit. It is certainly not universally true that everyone, even everyone in the first world, is busily typing up personal blogs and posting iphone photos. Many of us still prefer not to-but given the ease of putting ourselves on virtual display, that many may be a minority. (Some degree of such exposure seems even to be demanded-what professor doesn't have a web page?) Rather than draw interest by mystery, by keeping secrets, we try to draw it by display, in a self-revelation that can become nearly frantic. Bear with me: this particular de-mystifying, silly and superficial though it seems, really does bring us into connection with mysticism-because within and despite it, something remains, nonetheless. And that something "in" us, resisting the revelation of publicity while it troubles the very possibility of inwardness, may reveal to us a deeper mystery, with deeper theological implications. The urge for display marks both a continuation of and a shift in the demands of knowability and self-exposure. Scholars, most famously Michel Foucault, often trace these demands to the monastic practice of confession, later extended into a widespread pastoral practice inclusive of lay people. Early confession is particularly a confession of the flesh-its desires, its persistent habits, and its intrusions upon the monk's urge for purity and transparency, for a body perfect in practice and in 3 An important source for this idea is
The articles collected in this volume share a very similar goal: to decolonize our understanding ... more The articles collected in this volume share a very similar goal: to decolonize our understanding of antiquity, thus allowing modernity to converse with antiquity without constraining the latter to be either the direct precedent or the thoroughly other of the former. It is certainly true that the past is a foreign country. However, history has repeatedly demonstrated that colonialism never contributed to mutual understanding and constructive exchange of ideas, and that such is the dialogue we should strive forthwith our contemporaries as well as with our ancestors.