Deep Investigations
Asynchronous Session
Featured Hideaki Anno's Postmodern Vision in Evangelion: A Personal Interpretation of Salvation View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session José María Toro Piqueras
On March 20 1996, the ambiguous 25th episode of the Neon Genesis Evangelion series was released. A week later it came to its conclusion under sharp criticism: its spectators accused its director of aborting the climax of the "last" battle. Like a barefoot Moses standing before the divine presence embodied in a burning and murmuring bush, Shinji undresses before himself. He establishes a dialogue in which his voice will respond, so he is questioned by himself. Lines breaking the screen with the symbolism that Terrence Malick gives to God in his The Tree of Life: the Trascendent and the Word made Image. A plethora of mythical references (the Genesis devised by the Father, the Apocalypse, Adam and Lilith, the Messiah, etc.) cause a sense of dread to the Rilkean "vermauerten Augen" (walled-up eyes) of the contemporary spectator, who does not understand that leap into the void. A reverse step from Science Fiction to trascendent etiology, from noise to the abyss of silence. Thus Hideaki Anno offers us his own way of salvation. Neon Genesis Evangelion was the culmination of an internal process of transformation and severe depression at the end of which the creator established a connection with the resilient sacred.
The Patriarch, the Promised Land and the "Chosen" Nation: Interrogating Religion, Masculinity, and Nationalism in Exodus - Gods and Kings View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Jyoti Mishra
Todd Reeser (2010) observes that a nation in a state of fear, trauma, suffering or has experienced military defeat may uses images of strong masculinity to “revitalize or revirilize itself”. In post 9/11 America, the harking back to traditional forms of masculinity and heroic manhood, and calls for strong masculinized national response as observed by scholars like Hannah (2005), Nayak (2006), Faludi (2007) etc. can be seen manifested in the cinema of the times. This paper looks at the ways in which religion, masculinity and nationalism intertwine in the realm of popular culture to promote American geopolitical interests through a reading of Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014), a Biblical epic film re-imagining the Old Testament tale of Prophet Moses and the Exodus of Jews from Egypt. It focusses on US geopolitics post 9/11 and the “War on Terror” wherein the military engagements and other human rights abuses committed by America and its allies invited mass condemnation, necessitating ideological pushback. This period saw the use of religion, religious figures and language as it engaged with masculinized nationalist tenets in American politics to justify aggressive American foreign policies. Considering films as reflecting/refracting society, this paper primarily utilises theories from Connell, Nagel, and Slootmaeckers to focus on Moses-the Patriarch, the idea of a land promised by God and a people/nation “chosen” by God as sites of enquiry within the text, to understand the interplay of religion, masculinized nationalism and politics in contemporary times with special focus on America and its ally Israel.
Religious Thoughts in Kairos: A Comparative Study of Ancient Greek and Chinese Classics View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Yiling Fang, Qian Na
Kairos is one of the core rhetorical concepts and a significant way of thinking in ancient Greece, while ancient Chinese civilization has also witnessed quasi-kairotic thinkings. Among its implications, timing and moderation are two basic elements. Studies have displayed an intersection between kairos and religion by exploring the rhetoric of timing in the New Testament. However, The comparative study in this regard has hardly been touched upon. In order to further investigate the religious thoughts in kairos, we propose following questions: 1) What kind of relationship between people and Gods/celestial God is reflected in the kairotic thinking of Ancient Greek and Chinese Pre-Qin classics (c.800-221BC) respectively? 2) What are the major similarities and differences? 3) Why does kairos in these two cultures reflect such relationship? To solve these questions, we will mainly analyze two classics in detail: The Book of Documents (Shang Shu《尚书》) and Hesiod’s Works and Days. Also probed into are the corresponding religious thoughts in the Songs of Chu (Chu Ci《楚辞》) and the Book of Change (Zhou Yi《周易》) in Pre-Qin era as well as Hesiod’s Theogony and Plato’s Phaedrus in Ancient Greece. Through this comparative study, we have discovered a common theological feature within–the importance of Gods or celestial God in guiding people to act appropriately in the right time. Tracing back to the works in the Axial Age is of great significance, as it will not only enrich kairos by revealing its religious thoughts, but also suggest an effective way of deepening the research on key categories.
Fraternal Correction: Borrowing a Religious Model to Understand International Politics View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Brian Muzas
It is true that just war thought has an influential presence in international politics. Whether in international law or the emerging norms of the Responsibility to Protect, various fundamental and derived just war criteria often serve to measure or restrain state behavior. It is also true that, before and after just war thought was incorporated into current international law, much systematic thought and analysis was contributed by religious thinkers, notably from Christian traditions. However, just war thought has limitations: It is meant to grapple with the initiation and conduct of war, so much of international politics falls under its framework incompletely. Moreover, just war thought itself is a limited, special case of a broader outlook. In that broader outlook, however, one finds a plausible connection between international politics and peer-to-peer fraternal correction: The criteria which describe fraternal correction can be used to illuminate diplomacy because these criteria highlight the strategic and interactive aspects of international politics. While moving beyond just war thought, the fraternal correction framework fits with the philosophies of ethics, government, and human nature which underlie just war thought, and so the fraternal correction framework is a legitimate and relevant. Also, like just war thought, fraternal correction has been explored systematically by thinkers from Christian traditions. This paper leverages part of the relevant Christian religious cultural heritage in question, applies its fundamental principles to interstate relations, offers historical exemplifications of these principles in practice, and connects these principles to general and specific policy questions for contemporary state leaders.
