Adam Kotsko

I am going to be blogging regularly on my “Reading the Qur’an” course at An und für sich. This first introductory post, which discusses the structure and rationale behind the course, is available here. You can follow the series by using this blog label (which also includes a few older posts on the Qur’an).

I have updated my sample syllabi page to include my courses for the Spring Term:

• The Western Political Tradition
• What is Matter?
• Reading the Qur’an

This semester is a milestone for me. I have long hoped to teach in all three major areas of the Shimer Great Books curriculum (humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences), and I finally get to teach a natural sciences course with “What is Matter?” — a study of the history of chemistry through important primary sources and reenactments of key experiments (a version of which I took as a student as part of my training). Not only that, but I get to teach in all three areas simultaneously! It should be exciting and challenging.

I have submitted the final manuscript for my monograph on Agamben’s development. Following my editor’s suggestion, I have changed the title to Agamben’s Philosophical Trajectory, which will hopefully make the connection with my co-edited volume Agamben’s Philosophical Lineage. Assuming all goes well, the anticipated publication date is September 2020.

I just learned that the American Comparative Literature Association has accepted my proposal to co-direct (with Frances Restuccia) a seminar on “Agamben’s Later Works” at their annual conference in Chicago this March. I will be presenting a paper on “Agamben’s Vegetative Theology,” which will serve as a preview of one of the essays in my forthcoming collection What is Theology? Thank you to Frances for approaching me about proposing a seminar and to all the participants who submitted such excellent paper proposals.

As co-chair of the Theology and Continental Philosophy programming unit, I’m pleased to announce the sessions that we are running this year. A summary of the titles, days, and times follows, with full information “below the fold.”

“Bataille, Blackness, and the Tumultuous Sacred,” Saturday, 1:00 PM–3:00 PM
“The Devil and the Demons: Neoliberal Theology in the Work of Adam Kotsko,” Saturday, 5:30 PM–7:00 PM
“The Jew, the Christian, and the Ends of the World,” Monday, 3:30 PM–5:00 PM
“Mormon Theology and Continental Thought,” Monday, 5:30 PM–7:00 PM
“New Frontiers in Phenomenology of Religion,” Tuesday, 8:30 AM–10:00 AM

Continue reading “Theology and Continental Philosophy at the AAR”

I have a few events coming up in the next couple months. First off, I will be participating in the Northwestern Theology Colloquium, which this year is dedicated to the work of James Cone. I will be discussing my work in relation to Cone’s on Tuesday, October 15, from 10:30am to 12:30pm, at a location on the Northwestern campus to be announced. My discussion will be one of a couple “warm-up” events for a conference on Cone November 1-2.

Then I will be participating in “Religion’s Turn: A Chicago-Area Graduate Conference in the Continental Philosophy of Religions,” at the University of Chicago, where I will be part of a roundtable on teaching continental philosophy in the Chicago area. There will be a keynote address on Thursday, October 24, and then the sessions, including my roundtable, will be taking place on Friday, October 25.

Finally, in late November, I will be responding to a panel discussion of my books The Prince of This World and Neoliberalism’s Demons at the American Academy of Religion national conference in San Diego.

I am happy to announce that Edinburgh University Press has offered me a contract for my monograph on Agamben. I will be working on revising and finalizing the text over the next few months and anticipate submitting the final manuscript to the publisher by December 31.

I have received my copies of Florian Klug’s German translation of The Prince of This World — Der Fürst dieser Welt!

This week I was offered an advance contract by Fordham University Press for an essay collection. Tentatively entitled What is Theology?, it will bring together previously published, unpublished, and freshly written essays exploring the relationship between philosophy, political theology, and constructive theology. I plan to complete the manuscript by early next summer.

Last week, I submitted a proposal and writing sample to Edinburgh University Press for my current work-in-progress, a monograph on the thought of Giorgio Agamben with an emphasis on the ways it changes and adapts in response to world events and new intellectual influences. I anticipate completing the manuscript within the next several weeks.

Finally, I was offered a contract by Seagull Press to translate Agamben’s Il Regno e Il Giardino (The Kingdom and the Garden), a study of the role of the earthly Paradise or Garden of Eden in Western thought.

Some scholars organized a major edited volume on Agamben’s work to commemorate the full publication of Homo Sacer, and I have an essay in it — an Italian translation of “The Theology of Neoliberalism,” from my book with Colby Dickinson. Details here.