German Idealism and the Future of Political Theology

Detailed schedule available at: http://germanidealismconference.weebly.com/

Over the last two decades, political theology has again become an important field of academic research. In large part, this has come as a scholarly response to the new prominence of religion across the world, offering a site for critically re-articulating the status and theoretical conditions of secularity and secularism. Today, political theology interrogates, among other things, the religious dimensions of secular modernity, the conceptual resources of theology and their political uses, the theoretical and political ramifications of the upsurge of religion, as well as the possibility of moving beyond the traditional religious-secular binary. This renewed relevance of the political-theological has also been accompanied by a genealogical reexamination of its history and presuppositions. However, despite the visibility German Idealism currently enjoys in theoretical humanities, and despite the fact that it was the first fundamentally philosophical articulation of the political-theological problematic arising in the aftermath of the Enlightenment and the advent of secularity, to date scarcely any research has been done at the intersection of German Idealism and new political theology. Given that we, the (post-)moderns, are to this day caught between the secular and the post-secular ourselves, a new assessment of the religious-political paths in the wake of German Idealism is due. In light of that, this intensive workshop-like conference aims to rigorously stage the encounter between, and push forward the debate around the intersection of, political theology and the German Idealist tradition.

Organized by Kirill Chepurin and Alex Dubilet, with the support of Andreas Arndt and Rolf Schieder.
Supervised and hosted by Rolf Schieder, Lehrstuhl für Praktische Theologie, Theologische Fakultät, HU Berlin.
Funded by Das KOSMOS Programm, HU Berlin.