Spring 2020/Pasadena
PM567/867
Garcia-Johnson
PM567/867: CULTURAL THEORIES, EPISTEMOLOGIES, AND THEOLOGICAL PRAXIS (4 units masters: 175 hours / 6 units PhD or ThM: 385 hours). Oscar Garcia-Johnson.
DESCRIPTION: This is a 6-unit seminar for all PhD students in Practical Theology; at the 500-level, the 4-unit course is offered to a limited number of master’s level students as approved by the professor. This is an advanced and interdisciplinary theology seminar that addresses representations of culture, the production of global designs, the multiple expressions of modernities and colonialities, and the popular mediation of environmental ethics. With attention to epistemology and praxis, matters of theology and methodology will be engaged in the study of “the land” (Gaia/Pachamama), politics, economy, subjectivities, and religions. The hermeneutical implications of a decolonizing-praxis for theology, ethics, and ministry will be considered in an interdisciplinary manner, with attention to the potential participation of the Church in God’s mission within hegemonic global designs.
LEARNING OUTCOMES: (1) Students will articulate an understanding of key elements and recent constructs of de/postcolonial theological-critical frameworks. (2) Students will provide an integrative explanation of these de/postcolonial-framing devices in relationship to culture, Christian epistemology, church-and-world-systems, Christian praxis, transnationality, eco-criticism. (3) Students will demonstrate skills for shaping their theological method to cope with postmodern, postcolonial, post-Christendom, Post-secular, and informational capitalistic settings. (4) (PhD & ThM only) Students will develop a syllabus for a class on de/postcolonial theology of the Church or Ethics of Globalization. (5) Students will reflect critically on their own competencies and capacities for de/postcolonial-informed leadership in relationship to their current professional goals.
COURSE FORMAT: This class meets once per week for three-hour sessions for a total of 30 hours of classroom instruction for lecture and discussion plus 10 hours of directed learning activities for a total of 40 instructional hours. Students are expected to spend around 30 minutes of weekly in web-based media and interaction; class times will include collective readings of Enersto Cardenal–The Gospel in Solentiname, student presentations, shortlectures by guest speakers, individual and group exercises, and engaging discussions of materials and experiences.
REQUIRED READING: 1,511 pp. of required reading for MA/MDiv Students; 2943 pp. of required reading for PhD and ThM students.
All Students:
Clair Darde, Lynne St. Scripturizing Revelation: An African American Postcolonial Reading of Empire. SBL Press, 2015. ISBN: 978-1628370898, Pub. Price $29.95, Kindle Price $29.95. [208 pages]
Garcia-Johnson, Oscar. Spirit Outside the Gate: Decolonial Pneumatologies of the South. Intervarsity Press Academic, 2019. ISBN: 978-0830852406, Pub Price $32.00. [300 pages]
Hathaway, Mark, and Leonardo Boff. 2009.The Tao of Liberation: Exploring the Ecology of Transformation. Ecology and Justice. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books. ISBN: 978-1570758416, Pub Price $35.00 [419 pages]
Nayar, Pramod. Postcolonial Studies: An Anthology. Wiley Blackwell, 2015. ISBN: 978-1118781005, Pub. Price $52.00. [200 pages].
Santos, Boaventura de Sousa. Epistemologies of the South: Justice against Epistemicide. Routledge, 2016. ISBN:978-1612055459, Pub. Price $41.95/eBook $27.27 [284 pages]
Additional 100 pp., on Enrique Dussel’s theories of Transmodernity will be on Canvas.
* It is assumed that students are familiar with a standard guide to writing research papers, like Wayne Booth et al. The Craft of Research (4th ed). University of Chicago, 2008 and with CMOS Online.
PHD & THM STUDENTS (ALL ABOVE PLUS):
Isasi-Díaz, Ada María and Eduardo Mendieta, eds. Decolonizing Epistemologies: Latina/o Theology and Philosophy. Fordham University Press, 2011. ISBN: 978-0823241361, Pub. Price $40.00. [321 pages]
Kanneh, Kadiatu. African Identities: Race, Nation and Culture in Ethnography, Pan-Africanism and Black Literatures. Routledge, 1998. ISBN: 978-0415164450, Pub Price $46.95/ Kindle Rent $11.83 [204 pages]
Macfarland Taylor, Sarah. Ecopiety: Green Media and the Dilemma of Environmental Virtue. New York University Press, 2019. ISBN: 978-1479891313, Pub Price $30.00. [263 pp].
Mignolo, Walter D. Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges, and Border Thinking. Princeton University Press, 2000. ISBN: 978-0691156095, Pub. Price $31.95. [371 pages]
Slabodsky, Santiago. Decolonial Judaism: Triumphant Failures of Barbaric Thinking (New Approaches to Religion and Power). Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. ISBN:978-1137520289, Pub. Price $59.99, Kindle Rent $11.30 [273 pages]
ASSIGNMENTS AND ASSESSMENT: [PhD: 385 hours; MDiv/MA: 175 hours; includes 30 hours in class]
PREREQUISITES: MA/MDiv students must have completed a minimum of 72 quarter units of course work and have permission of the professor.
RELATIONSHIP TO CURRICULUM: Elective. Required for CATS Practical Theology students.
FINAL EXAMINATION: None.
NOTE: This ECD is a reliable guide to the course design but is subject to modification. Textbook prices are set by publishers and are subject to change. Copyright 2019 Fuller Theological Seminary.