A Jamesonian theory of theological practice: a critical response to the work of Roland Boer

In a conjuncture marked by the “resurgence of religion,” the problem of historical materialism’s relation to religious ideologies has acquired a new urgency. The work of Roland Boer, recently awarded the Deutscher Prize for his magnum opus on Marxism and Theology poses this question from a surprising perspective. While his main claim is that religious influences in Marxist theory represent a sort of theological unconscious in historical materialism, at the same time Boer also advances an original Marxist interpretation of the Abrahamic religions, especially Christianity. This line of research, which extends from his dissertation on Jameson and Jeroboam through to his most recent work on The Sacred Economy, proposes that theology is a reflective representation of the social totality. In this article, I criticise Boer’s valorisation of theology as a practical discourse that is post-ideological but non-theoretical, and conclude by indicating an alternative.

On Roland Boer’s Marxism and theology

This piece aims to provide a synoptic introduction to Boer’s claims in the five volumes of Marxism and Theology. Obviously, such an account must miss many important nuances across the host of critical readings Boer assembles, guided by his broadly Jamesonian manner of reading the texts with a view to their biblical and theological claims. Nevertheless, by aiming at a synoptic view of a truly compendious contribution to scholarship, it is hoped that the piece will provide assistance to readers, and encourage them to test their own intuitions and thoughts against the original texts. The final part of the article stands back from this ‘‘standing back’’: and asks questions concerning Boer’s treatments of biblical criticism, with and/or against theology; and concerning the role of what might be called (even despite Boer’s own protests) a kind of ‘‘secularised’’ Calvinism in Boer’s work and its interest in a post-Marxian politics of grace.

'More things in heaven and earth ...': The theological aufhebung of Roland Boer

Abstract: A great philosopher once wrote that 'some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested'. The five volumes of Roland Boer's magisterial series Marxism and Theology may well be all three. Certainly, there is too much in the series to be digested in any one review study. Nevertheless, in what follows, we will attempt in small measure the impossible: first setting out the basic methodological and exegetical claims of the series as we see them (I), before commenting on what we take to be Boer's own theses, constructed on the basis of this remarkable, almost-Baconian 'natural history' of Marxist and post-Marxist texts on theology (II). In Part III, taking up some of the essay's opening, framing remarks, we will pose some reflections on the significance of Boer's study and its place within the widely touted 'return to religion' today, as well as the peculiar physiognomy and reasons for this 'return'.

Reconciling colonial memories in Korea and Japan

The Republic of Korea and Japan share a tumultuous history, but arguably no period has caused greater trauma in bilateral relations than the twentieth century. After Japan’s four-decade long colonial occupation of Korea, the two countries took two decades just to establish diplomatic relations. Subsequent interactions have remained seriously compromised by the memory of colonialism. This article reviews the tensions behind the tempestuous bilateral relationship, focusing on the depiction of Japan’s wartime past in school textbooks. We advance three suggestions for reconciliation: viewing reconciliation not as the restoration of a harmonious pre-conflict order, but as an ongoing, incomplete process; expanding promising bilateral dialogues; and accepting that there will always be differences between Korea and Japan, most notably with regard to representations of the past. Rather than being an inevitable source of conflict, these differences should contribute to an ongoing process of negotiation between the two neighbors.

Investigation of telomere lengths measurement by quantitative real-time PCR to predict age

Currently DNA profiling methods only compare a suspect’s DNA with DNA left at the crime scene. When there is no suspect, it would be useful for the police to be able to predict what the person of interest looks like by analysing the DNA left behind in a crime scene. Determination of the age of the suspect is an important factor in creating an identikit. Human somatic cells gradually lose telomeric repeats with age. This study investigated if one could use a correlation between telomere length and age, to predict the age of an individual from their DNA. Telomere length, in buccal cells, of 167 individuals aged between 1 and 96 years old was measured using real-time quantitative PCR. Telomere length decreased with age (r = −0.185, P < 0.05) and the age of an individual could be roughly determined by the following formula: (age = relative telomere length −1.5/−0.005). The regression (R2) value between telomere length and age was not, vert, similar0.04, which is too low to be use for forensics. The causes for the presence of large variation in telomere lengths in the population were further investigated. The age prediction accuracies were low even after dividing samples into non-related Caucasians, males and females (5%, 9% and 1%, respectively). Mean telomere lengths of eight age groups representing each decade of life showed non-linear decrease in telomere length with age. There were variations in telomere lengths even among similarly aged individuals aged 26 years old (n = 10) and age 54 years old (n = 9). Therefore, telomere length measurement by real-time quantitative PCR cannot be used to predict age of a person, due to the presence of large inter-individual variations in telomere lengths.

Efficacy and safety of vertebroplasty for treatment of painful osteoporotic vertebral fractures: a randomised controlled trial [ACTRN012605000079640]

Background: Vertebroplasty is a promising but as yet unproven treatment for painful osteoporotic vertebral fractures. It involves radiographic-guided injection of various types of bone cement directly into the vertebral fracture site. Uncontrolled studies and two controlled quasi-experimental before-after studies comparing volunteers who were offered treatment to those who refused it, have suggested an early benefit including rapid pain relief and improved function. Conversely, several uncontrolled studies and one of the controlled before-after studies have also suggested that vertebroplasty may increase the risk of subsequent vertebral fractures, particularly in vertebrae adjacent to treated levels or if cement leakage into the adjacent disc has occurred. As yet, there are no completed randomised controlled trials of vertebroplasty for osteoporotic vertebral fractures. The aims of this participant and outcome assessor-blinded randomised placebo-controlled trial are to i) determine the short-term efficacy and safety (3 months) of vertebroplasty for alleviating pain and improving function for painful osteoporotic vertebral fractures; and ii) determine its medium to longer-term efficacy and safety, particularly the risk of further fracture over 2 years.

Design: A double-blind randomised controlled trial of 200 participants with one or two recent painful osteoporotic vertebral fractures. Participants will be stratified by duration of symptoms (< and ≥ 6 weeks), gender and treating radiologist and randomly allocated to either the treatment or placebo. Outcomes will be assessed at baseline, 1 week, 1, 3, 6, 12 and 24 months. Outcome measures include overall, night and rest pain on 10 cm visual analogue scales, quality of life measured by the Assessment of Quality of Life, Osteoporosis Quality of Life and EQ-5D questionnaires; participant perceived recovery on a 7-point ordinal scale ranging from 'a great deal worse' to 'a great deal better'; disability measured by the Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire; timed 'Up and Go' test; and adverse effects. The presence of new fractures will be assessed by radiographs of the thoracic and lumbar spine performed at 12 and 24 months.

Discussion: The results of this trial will be of major international importance and findings will be immediately translatable into clinical practice.

Trial registration: Australian Clinical Trial Register # [ACTRN012605000079640]

Is near to . . . and is . . . distant from : exegetical manoeuvres in Janet Frame’s The Carpathians

This paper argues that Janet Frame’s 1988 novel, The Carpathians, can be read as a series of manoeuvres operating at the frontiers of exegesis and fiction. The overall effect of these manoeuvres is to interrogate the conditions of an exegetical (or literary critical) engagement with Frame’s writings. In particular, The Carpathians drills down into the metaphorics of one of the key notions of literary criticism: critical distance. Critical distance is a catch phrase of exegesis, as well as of literary criticism, because it serves to appropriately position the exegete (like the literary critic) as both near to and distant from the object of study: the literary text. However, Frame’s fictional/Scientific concept of the Gravity Star deconstructs the metaphorics of distance and, by extension, critical distance itself, by suggesting a para-doxical relationship of propinquity and remoteness. The Gravity Star is ‘both relatively close and seven billion light years away.’ Thus, Frame introduces chaos into language and logic, with the dual effect of undermining exegetical activity (which depends on the  metaphorics linked to critical distance) and of creatively multiplying the meanings of The Carpathians. In this way, Frame’s novel replaces conventional exegesis with creative exegesis. My paper also looks at the games Frame plays, in this novel and in Towards Another Summer (2007), with Roland Barthes’s notion of the ‘death of the Author.’ Like critical distance, the Author is a prop for exegesis that certain manoeuvres of writing can undermine, thus allowing the literary text to reproduce itself on an interior plane.

Postmodernist-feminism and education : a textual performance

This dissertation is performed as a self-reflexive postmodernist-feminist text that is rather like a work in progress. The relationship between feminismS and postmodernismS is investigated to reveal some of the possibilities that might result from their conjunction, whilst some critical disjunctions which may need to be bridged are recognised. Throughout this dissertation, I have explored how, as well as challenging traditional paradigms of gender, postmodernist-feminism acts to challenge traditional views of meaning, knowledge and text, and, further, how this challenge opens up possibilities for all those entrapped by the paradigms of power, whether outside or Inside. When 'reality' and 'knowledge' are revealed as constructions (not unlike fiction), new possibilities of/for postmodernist-feminist multilinearity emerge. This text practises, then, what I have nominated as three important areas of postmodernist-feminism: jouissance (pleasure and playfulness as in feminist poetics); bricolage (making the text work as a one-off); and deconstruction (an admission that the text is neither seamless nor AUTHORitative). In doing so, it emphasises the practice of what Roland Barthes calls 'writerly-reading', in which the reader is revealed as having power over the text according to the way(s) s/he enters it. In this praxis I suggest that the writer may also abdicate AUTHORity over the text by what I have called 'readerly-writing'. Taking up Gregory Ulmer's challenge to construct a 'mystory', it is my story of my journey as a woman, parent, writer mid teacher who is becoming a certified scholar. My lifelong practical interest in education thus reaches a theoretical self-understanding in this text, which is itself a praxis. Thus I introduce the practice of a non-seamless horizontality in which reflections and stories show themselves to be temporal and cultural constructions. The implications of this for school/educational experiences are central to this praxis.

Ethnomusicological study of music makers in an Australian military band

This dissertation reports on a study of music making in a band of the Australian Army Band Corps. The thesis of the dissertation is how the world views of the soldier-musicians of the Australian Army Band, Kapooka, are constructed in the context of their work in military music performance. In arguing this thesis, the author provides a brief history of military music in Australia, and - demonstrates how rank and military discipline intersect with music making in the lived experience of the soldier-musicians; - explores how the dichotomy between music making as a craft and music making as art is resolved in a setting where the employer regards music making as a trade, while the soldier-musicians strive to meet artistic goals; - demonstrates how successful music making and successful soldiering are both forms of work which depend upon effective collective action; - demonstrates that while military bands play the widest repertoire of musical styles of any Western music ensemble, the styles converge toward a homogenous, eclectic, military band performance style: and - explores how military music, which may have limited intrinsic interest, in certain ceremonial settings may link with other visual and auditory symbol systems to generate profound meaning both for the soldier-musicians themselves and for their audiences. The study examines the processes by which the world views of soldier-musicians are shaped by the institutional context in which they work, as they participate in a music tradition which has been a powerful agent in the shaping of Australian patriotic traditions. The study uses a naturalistic participant observation methodology. The author worked as an honorary guest civilian member of the band’s trombone section to collect data in the form of fieldnotes and interviews. Data analysis and interpretation was made according to the tenets of grounded theory. Evidence in the form of first hand accounts from the perspective of the researcher and from the soldier-musicians themselves is employed to generate both emic and etic understandings. An understanding of a music culture from the participant's point of view is a central concern of the study.

Sustainability in online communities of practice : the case study of a group of Secondary School Educators in Victoria

This paper reports on Information Technology (IT) secondary school educators in Victoria and their involvement in an online community of practice. It examined the social effects of the online mailing list technology on their participation and factors that influenced their collaboration with other colleagues. In mapping these elements, the motivations of educators and the effects on online communities of practice can be distilled and then used to build and sustain other architectures of participation. It was found that mailing list subscribers seem to trade a currency of support, thoughts, ideas and answers, which helped them in their day-to-day teaching. Online communities of practice provide a convenient way to keep up professional networks while continuing to stay abreast with subject specific knowledge and skills. The findings of this case study may be generalised to other educational mailing lists to guide designers and managers and inspire educators to join and ultimately benefit from these text based online environments.

Ko Un and the poetics of postcolonial identity

Ko Un is one of South Korea's most important writers of the past 50 years, and a poet whose work provides important insights into crucial linkages between language, identity and community. He lived through, chronicled and critically engaged most of the traumatic events his nation faced during the last century: a brutal colonial occupation by Japan; the division of the peninsula into communist North and capitalist South; an unusually devastating fraternal war; the integration of the divided peninsula into global Cold War politics; periods of authoritarian rule on both sides; and the more recent challenge to promote reconciliation. Some of these episodes challenged the very existence of Korea as a people, nation and state. Ko Un's poetry was part of a larger effort to regain a sense of being and national identity in the face of turmoil, war and globalisation. We argue that by engaging with these highly political issues Ko Un's work provides important clues about how to articulate notions of identity and community in a way that empathetically portrays other people and their identities. In doing so he offers an alternative to the prevailing inside/outside logic that often leads to problematic forms of nationalism.