22/05/2024 15:30 - 16:30

HALL: FATESI - DUSMET

Proponent: Schmiedel U.

Speaker: Langner-Pitschmann A., Lynch T., Rapisarda D.L., Schmiedel U.

Claims to vulnerability stir up controversies in ethics and politics. In his groundbreaking A "Political Theology of Vulnerability" (Leiden: Brill, 2023), Sturla J. Stålsett (MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion, and Society) contends that vulnerability is central to political practices. He combines political theory and political theology with reflections on lived religion that draw on his own experiences with liberation movements from around the globe to capture how people gain motivation and meaning in struggles for liberation. Ritualizations of the founding narratives of the Christian faith, Stålsett argues, create a continuous and contextual re-imagination of divine vulnerability that unfolds a powerful political dynamic. In this paradoxical appraisal of power emerges a possible resurgence of agency and community in precarity.
Featuring speakers from across Europe, this panel discusses "A Political Theology of Vulnerability" in a conversation that blurs the disciplinary boundaries between theology, philosophy, sociology, and social work in order to explore the problems and potentials of vulnerability in contemporary politics.