Quoting Mieke Bal’s Navel: Contemporary Theory, Preposterous Religion

Bennett-Carpenter - Quoting Mieke Bal's Navel - JCRT 4.1

Quoting Mieke Bal's Navel: Contemporary Theory, Preposterous Religion

Benjamin Bennett-Carpenter
Catholic University of America

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Art and literary theorist Mieke Bal may be read in terms of a philosophy or theory of religion in a genealogy that begins with Kierkegaard, runs through Nietzsche and Heidegger and concludes in the vicinity of Merleau-Ponty, Foucault, and Derrida. With Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, hers is a post-Christendom, post-christian theory of religion that could be described at the outset as 'preposterous.' With Nietzsche and Heidegger, her critical and interpretive strategies circulate, not to attempt a circumvention of meaning, but to negotiate the limits of significant horizons. With Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, she follows a bodied phenomenology that can never extricate itself from the world and earth. With Derrida and Foucault, she is both deconstructive and post-structuralist as she moves amongst the play of signs and the rhetoric of resistance. Finally, she stands as an alternative to Baudrillard in a world of theory after Foucault and Derrida or, at least, in the midst of their traces.

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Special thanks to Stephen Happel who introduced me to "Mieke Bal" and who offered significant feedback at several points during the writing of this article.

Notes

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Benjamin Bennett-Carpenter is a doctoral student in religion and rhetoric at the Catholic University of America, Washington DC.

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