Dante's theology and contemporary thought: Recovering transcendence?. (August 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Franke, William
• Other Names: Jacoff Rachel guest-editor.; Pertile Lino guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Forum Italicum. Volume 55:Number 2(2021)
• Page Start: 627
• Page End: 641
• Publication Date: 2021-08
• Subjects: archeology of knowledge -- hermeneutics/deconstruction -- political theology -- postsecularism -- realized eschatology -- secularization -- transcendence/immanence; Italian language -- Periodicals; Italian literature -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; Italian literature -- 20th century -- Periodicals; Italy -- Civilization -- Periodicals; 850.5
• DOI: 10.1177/00145858211021557
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0014-5858

Abstract

This article outlines how Dante's philosophy and theology turn on issues that are being debated in broader philosophical, theological, and theoretical milieus today. It emphasizes, in particular, how the new horizon opened by certain postmodern—and more specifically post-secular—turns in philosophy shifts the light falling on the interface between the concepts of transcendence and immanence. As a result, Dante's attempt, in the twilight of the Middle Ages, to renegotiate the relations between the two shows up as acutely relevant and potentially groundbreaking for current philosophical and theological inquiry. The areas of inquiry traversed include realized eschatology as theorized by Agamben; Foucault's archeological model of knowledge; Patristic and medieval hexameral exegesis; the tension between hermeneutics and deconstruction; political theology; the theological turn in phenomenology; secularism and humanities as crypto-theological forms of thought. All are examined as prefigured in embryo by Dante's comprehensive, poetic approach to knowing.