Buch, Englisch, 224 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 304 g
Buch, Englisch, 224 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 304 g
ISBN: 978-0-567-02678-1
Verlag: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
For Judeo-Christian theology, The Laughter of the Oppressed explores uncharted terrain. This book broadens the theological lens to examine the multicultural, modern historical fiction of Elie Wiesel, Toni Morrison, and Shusaku Endo as case studies. In these authors’ well-respected texts, Gates of the Forest, Beloved, and Silence, we discover the laughter of the Jews during the Holocaust, the laughter of African Americans both slave and free, and the laughter of the persecuted religious minority of Japanese Christians.
Jacqueline Bussie's book tackles the following unanswered questions: What is the theological and ethical significance of the laughter of the oppressed? And what does it mean to laugh at the horrible--to laugh while one suffers? The majority of ethical philosophical theory and western theology (e.g. Augustine, St. John Chrysostom, Oecolampadius, Reinhold Niebuhr) maintains that laughter is nihilistic and irresponsible, especially if occurring within tragic circumstance. However, she argues that the dominant social location of these theologians and theorists has led to a gap in inquiry, to a failure to consider laughter 'from below.'
For Judeo-Christian theology, The Laughter of the Oppressed explores uncharted terrain. This book broadens the theological lens to examine the multicultural, modern historical fiction of Elie Wiesel, Toni Morrison, and Shusaku Endo as case studies. In these authors’ well-respected texts, Gates of the Forest, Beloved, and Silence, we discover the laughter of the Jews during the Holocaust, the laughter of African Americans both slave and free, and the laughter of the persecuted religious minority of Japanese Christians. These texts, in dialogue with voices from within and beyond their traditions, help us construct a theology of laughter. Bussie's book concludes that laughter functions as invaluable ethical and theological mode of resistance in the face of radically negating oppression that has ruptured both language and traditional belief.
The Laughter of the Oppressed not only interrupts the banality of evil and the dualism of faith and doubt, but also deconstructs the dominant consciousness. Such laughter challenges theology to rearticulate the relationships between God and evil, theology and theodicy, theology and language, paradox and faith, tragedy and hope, and oppression and resistance.
Autoren/Hrsg.
Fachgebiete
- Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Systematische Theologie
- Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Religionssoziologie
- Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Christentum/Christliche Theologie Allgemein Christliche Kunst und Kultur
- Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Psychologische Disziplinen Religionspsychologie
- Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religionssoziologie und -psychologie, Spiritualität, Mystik
Weitere Infos & Material
Chapter 1: Laughter ‘from below’
A. Contemporary case study
B. Project Origins, Questions, and Objectives
C. Methodological Questions and Answers
Chapter 2: Authoritative Voices Speak: Philosophers and Theologians Weigh-In on Laughter
A. Laughter and Philosophical Inquiry
B. Laughter: A Theological Tableau
C. Laughter and Modern Fiction: The ‘Hidden Transcript’
Chapter 3: ‘God’s Mistake:’ Laughter in Elie Wiesel’s Gates of the Forest
A. Linguistic Rupture and Laughter as Ethical Resistance
B. Resources for Resistance within Hasidism
C. Laughter and the Paradox of Faith
D. Scriptural and Midrashic Laughter
Chapter 4: Believing Apostates: Laughter in Shusaku Endo’s Silence
A. Narratives in Conflict
B. Laughter as Kenosis
C. Laughter’s Relationship to a Theology of the Cross
Chapter 5: Flowers in the Dark: African American Consciousness, Laughter, and Resistance in Toni Morrison’s Beloved
A. Baby Suggs: The ‘Unchurched Preacher’
B. Sixo: Laughing to Death
C. Paul D: The Last of the Sweet Home Men
Chapter 6: Toward a Theology of Laughter
A. Faith and Hope as Paradoxical and Propleptic
B. The Inadequacy of Either/Or
C. Theological Honesty and the Problem of Finitude
D. The Problematic of a Theology of Suffering
E. The Limits of Theodicy
