Embodying solidarity: Subjectivity in a political ecclesiology after Johann Baptist Metz and Judith Butler

Brianne A. B Jacobs, Fordham University

Abstract

The thesis of this dissertation is that, using Butler’s notion of the body as performative, one can understood the body as a Metzian existential of human self-understanding. I argue in concert with Metz that as an existential category, Butler’s performative body-subject makes full, authentic self-knowledge in relationship with God impossible in this history. This impossibility is because of the complicity in suffering that embodiedness implies for both thinkers. However, I argue that it is only as embodied subjects—able, as Metz would argue, to address and mourn suffering in history by, as Butler would argue, performing our bodies differently—that we can hope for an existential, eschatological relationship with God, fulfilled in solidarity with others.

Subject Area

Theology

Recommended Citation

Jacobs, Brianne A. B, "Embodying solidarity: Subjectivity in a political ecclesiology after Johann Baptist Metz and Judith Butler" (2016). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI10247643.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI10247643

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