Welcome to Sebastianism, a newsletter about Christianity, politics, philosophy, and non-philosophy. Please tell the subscribe button, and please click your friends and enemies to do the same.
I hope to use this space to circulate some of the findings from my research for my dissertation, which is currently in progress. My project concerns what I call the logic of supersession in the West. I’m reading early Christian figures like Tertullian of Carthage and Augustine of Hippo through a number of modern lenses, but especially Erich Auerbach’s important work on the concept of figura. I’m also looking at the work of G.W.F. Hegel, especially the way that the (theo-)logic of supersession survives in Hegel’s philosophy of religion and philosophy of history. At bottom, I’m interested in the way that the ancient problem of supersession (commonly understood as ‘replacement theology,’ in which Christians replace Jews as God’s chosen people in the history of salvation) remains a problem for thought today. My sense is that the notion of ‘replacement’—while not exactly wrong—is not quite the right rubric with which to approach the problem named by supersession. I’ll say more very soon, of course.
I’ll also be using this space to explore some of my intellectual interests that tend to fall outside the ambit of my research plan, which is narrowly focused on Hegel’s inheritance of Christian theological concepts and structures. Apart from that narrow road, I also do a lot of reading in political theology, psychoanalysis, black studies, and non-philosophy. While these discourses might not feature as prominently in the dissertation as such, my interest in them is unflagging. So, for now, I’ll work with them here, with you.
Finally, I’ll be teaching a course on the Reformation in the Spring, so you should expect some idle thoughts on Augustine, Luther, the free will, and perhaps even that bête noire of liberal democracy, Giorgio Agamben. God only knows.
At the moment, I’m planning to post content once weekly, likely on Mondays. Some things to look forward to in the coming weeks:
The text of my AAR 2022 paper presentation, entitled “How Do We Recognize Christianity?” (I presented this paper—a first attempt to speak publicly about my research—last week in Denver, CO.)
A reflection on that presentation, as well as the (somewhat contentious) discussion that followed.
A short essay on the concept of tradition, in which I plan to discuss Auerbach’s reading of Tertullian. Spoiler alert: it’s to do with Hegel.
That’s all for now. Ciao.
tim
“The non-philosopher is certainly not a Saint Paul fantasizing about a new Church. The non-philosopher is either a (Saint) Sebastian whose flesh is pierced with as many arrows as there are Churches, or a Christ persecuted by a Saint Paul.”
—François Laruelle, Struggle and Utopia at the End Times of Philosophy