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Political Theology Reimagined

Book

Pages: 392

Illustrations: 1 illustration

Published: August 2025

Subjects
Religious Studies, Politics > Political Theory, Theory and Philosophy > Black Thought

Political theology has emerged as an enormously energetic, creative way of exploring the complex relationships between religion, politics, and culture around the world. Political Theology Reimagined centers decolonial, Black, queer, feminist, and Marxist modes of critical practice to offer a cutting-edge vision of the field that foregrounds a political theology animated by both a fascination with and a suspicion of the secular. Among other things, contributors explore how religious ideas, practices, and imaginations are inflected by anti-Blackness, patriarchy, and colonial histories; theorize anew the status of secularization narratives; probe the universality and translatability of conceptual abstractions; and experiment with the powers of genealogy and speculation. In short, they grapple with religion and critique in all their complexity, opening new itineraries in political theology by transforming its fundamental theoretical coordinates. Traversing diverse sites, from South Asia to the Middle East to Indigenous North America, and working across diverse scales, from the national to the planetary to the cosmic, this volume models the future of political theology by pairing rigorous critique with a commitment to collective liberation.

Contributors. Prathama Banerjee, Agata Bielik-Robson, Kirill Chepurin, Alex Dubilet, James Edward Ford III, Lucia Hulsether, Basit Kareem Iqbal, Ada S. Jaarsma, Siobhan Kelly, David Kline, Adam Kotsko, Dana Lloyd, Vincent W. Lloyd, Beatrice Marovich, Aseel Najib, Milad Odabaei, Inese Radzins, George Shulman, Martin Shuster, Rafael Vizcaíno

Praise

“In this bounteous volume, political theology takes stock of its pasts and its futures. It reveals itself as a discourse of concepts but also of names. What’s in a name? What indeed are the names of political theology? What paleonymy, what onomatology, sustains it? What names must it invent still? Old and new, necessary and unexpected, proper and (un)common—an indispensable nomenclature emerges from each of these rich essays.” - Gil Anidjar, author of On the Sovereignty of Mothers: The Political as Maternal

"This important volume expands beyond the usual connection between political theology and Christian doctrine, tracking how previously theological concepts continue to morph into various secular guises. The contributors demonstrate that political theology is a powerful resource by which to both recognize and challenge the modalities of politics and social life that are practiced in our own time. The reimagination that the title points to is not so much a way to start political theology all over again but to focus on its subversive and radical potential." - James R. Martel, author of Anarchist Prophets: Disappointing Vision and the Power of Collective Sight

"Political Theology Reimagined is a book for such a time as this, deserving of a place on syllabi and in the public discourse of those concerned with plotting the politico-theological paths that lie ahead. Recommended. General readers through graduate students." - Choice

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Author/Editor Bios Table Of Contents Rights Additional Information

Author/Editor Bios

Alex Dubilet is Assistant Professor of English at Vanderbilt University.

Vincent W. Lloyd is Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University.

Introduction: Political Theology in Riotous Times / Alex Dubilet and Vincent W. Lloyd 1
Part 1. Expanded Horizons in Critical Theory
1. From Negation to Critique: Adorno on Transcendence / Agata Bielik-Robson 31
2. Poltical Theology’s Antagonisms: Between Stasis and Gnosis / Alex Dubilet 47
3. Exchange Beyond Exchange: Kōjin Karatani and the Persistence of the Religious / Martin Shuster 64
4. Keeping Life Living: Thinking with Michel Henry / Inese Radzins 79
5. Passionate Thinking: Isabelle Stengers and Political Theology / Ada S. Jaarsma 96
Part 2. The Colonial, the Planetary, and the Cosmic
6. For a Historical Grammar of Concepts: Thinking About Political Theology with Talal Asad / Basit Kareem Iqbal and Milad Obadaei 115
7. The Political as Method: Toward a Postcolonial Political Theology of Islam / Aseel Najib 128
8. Postsecular Philosophy and Decolonization as a Political-Theological Struggle / Rafael Vizcaíno 142
9. Political Theology and Religious Criticism: B. R. Ambedkar and His Contemporaries / Prathama Banerjee 156
10. Cosmic Delegitimation: Toward a Political Theology of Scale / Kirill Chepurin 173
Part 3. Race, Blackness, and Modernity
11. Rethinking Political Theology as Faith, Poesis, and Praxis / George Shulman 193
12. On Black Study and Political Theology / Jaes Edward Ford III 210
13. The Science of the Word: Sylvia Wynter, Political Theology, and Human Hybridity / David Kline 226
14. Wound or Healing? Black Feminism and Political Theology / Vincent W. Lloyd 242
Part 4. Itineraries in Feminism and Gender
15. Finding Air: Biomythologies of Breath / Beatrice Marovich 261
16. Sovereign Storytelling: A Political Theology of Bad Intentions / Dana Lloyd 275
17. Toward an Intersectional Genealogical Method: Silvia Federici as a Paradigm for Political Theology / Adam Kotsko 290
18. Political Theology’s Gender Trouble / Siobhan Kelly 304
19. Tabitha’s Trauma: Christian Nationalism, Centrist Jeremiad, and the Reconstruction of the American Family / Lucia Hulsether 319
Bibliography 337
Contributors 369
Index 371

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