Author: The Rev. Joshua Paetkau
-
Geopolitics of Religion: Manlio Graziano’s Holy Wars & Holy Alliance.
Works Reviewed. Graziano, Manlio. Holy Wars and Holy Alliance: The Return of Religion to the Global Political Stage. New York: Columbia University Press, 2017. The theme of a return of religion, particularly a return of religion to the domain of politics, has been the subject of a great deal of attention over the past sixteen years…
-
Unanchored Reason: Gaston Bachelard and Surrealist Philosophy.
Works Reviewed. Kotowicz, Zbigniew. Gaston Bachelard: A Philosophy of the Surreal. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016. 212 pages. It was with some sadness that I recently learned that Zbigniew Kotowicz had died, not long after I had begun reading his book on Gaston Bachelard. Sadness that he would never again put pen to with the warmth and wit …
-
Song Phenomena: Various Approaches to Understanding Song.
Works Reviewed. Jean Nicolas De Surmont. From Vocal Poetry to Song: Towards a Theory of Song Objects. Translated by Anastasija Ropa . Stuttgart, Germany: ibidem Press, 2017. The vocalized song, among the most ubiquitous of cultural objects, is also one whose form remains remarkably undefined and insufficiently researched. Or, perhaps it would be more accurate…
-
Beyond Burning our World. A Review of Energy Dreams: Of Actuality.
Works Reviewed. Marder, Michael. Energy Dreams: Of Actuality. New York: Columbia University Press. 2017 . One needs little convincing, these days, that our world is burning. While the concept of hell no longer plays a significant role in religious piety – at least in the North Atlantic world – the daily news tells a different story. From the…
-
Something went wrong: Enmity, friendship, and historical memory.
I think it is a disaster that my students grow up in sheer ignorance of the Bible… I should have devoted myself to this, but by vanity and fate I became a philosopher. I thought it wasn’t my calling. Today I see that a Bible lesson is more important than a lesson on Hegel. A…
-
Every Day
A Meditation on Every Day. Every Day War is no longer declared, but rather continued. The outrageous has become the everyday. The hero is absent from the battle. The weak are moved into the firing zone. The uniform of the day is patience, the order of merit is the wretched star of hope over the…
-
PermaWar.
PermaWar. There it is; a succinct description of the current stage of globalisation in which we find ourselves. The obscene rejection of all the principles of a true permaculture. Rather than build and design for peace and for the true flourishing of human and natural activity, we are subject to the perpetual drumbeat of war. The onward…
-
Saudi Arms Deal: Canada has not done the right thing. A Reply to Professor Hansen
It has been some time since I last attended to this space and, perhaps, a political rant is not the best re-introduction. Still, I was provoked. Irked, really, by the astounding lack of empathy and general good sense of a so-called “international security expert.” To be clear the personage in question, one Randall Hansen, is…
-
Red Rosa: On Economic Expansion and Militarism.
Red Rosa:On Economic Expansion and Militarism. Works Reviewed: . Luxemburg, Rosa. The Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg. Volume 1: Economic Writings 1. Edited by Peter Hudis. Translated by David Fernbach, Jospeh Fraccia, and George Shriver. New York: Verso, 2013., 596 pages. Rosa Luxemburg appears to us today, in the gauzy film of hindsight, not so…