Theological Differences Research Articles

In the Shadow of William Penn: Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting of Friends (review)

64Quaker History young idealist whom the mature Bacon calls "naive" but who, not yet grounded in a firm religious faith, strives to behave morally in a flawed world and works to build a lasting marriage under stressful circumstances. Observing her own fear and the conduct ofthe hospital staff, Bacon learns it is possible for fear to cast out love, but in the end proves the greater truth that "perfect love casteth out fear." In a telling vignette, Bacon is given, on her first day on the job, the task ofbathing a "hellcat," a violent, demented woman with tuberculosis of the bowels whom the other attendants fear. Though gentleness and respect, Bacon is able to quiet her and bring some peace to her tormented life. Ultimately, this memoir attains the coherence of the novel that was never published, holding in tension complex issues ofidealism and reality, hope and despair, youth and maturity, love and fear. Despite some lapses in proofreading, it is satisfying both as narrative and as social history. Caroline CherryEastern University In the Shadow ofWilliam Penn: Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting of Friends. By Margaret Hope Bacon. Philadelphia: Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, 2001. xii + 74 pp. Bibliography, illustrations, map, index. $12. This useful volume summarizes not only the story of Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting but also Quaker history as seen in Philadelphia in the nineteenth and twentieth century. As Bacon says, to understand the history of the two meetings, Race Street and Twelfth Street, that became Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, "is to know the story of Philadelphia Quakers for almost two centuries: their concerns, their tragic separation , and their eventual healing." The three chapters contain informative details about the founding of various Quaker schools and colleges (including Friends Central, Friends Select, the George School, Haverford and Swarthmore Colleges), varying attitudes toward involvement in social concerns, differing responses toward the wars that occurred during this period, the relation of men's and women's meetings and the influence of women on Philadelphia Quakerism , and other matters of interest. Modern Friends unacquainted with this period ofQuaker history will be surprised to learn, for instance, that in the 1830s and 1840s Hicksite elders sometimes disciplined those who spoke against slavery, although by the time of the Civil War they were unified in their abolitionist stand. On the more positive side, concern about slavery and aid for former slaves was so Book Reviews65 strong that Orthodox and Hicksite Friends cooperated in such efforts as the Association for the Aid and Elevation ofthe Freedmen and the Institute for Colored Youth. In fact, by the end of the nineteenth century, both of the main branches of Quakers were deeply involved in social action and outreach, including the Women's Foreign Missionary Association ofFriends ofPhiladelphia, which sponsored, among other endeavors, a girls' school in Ramallah, Palestine, and a mission in Tokyo. Race Street Yearly Meeting was moved in 1914 to pass a minute supporting women's suffrage, "perhaps the first such statement by a religious body," Bacon says. Philadelphia Quakers were powerful enough to have an impact; in the latter part of the nineteenth century, Race Street Meeting numbered nearly 1 ,900 members. The last chapter deals with the final healing ofthe breach of 1827 when, after years ofinching toward reunion through the efforts ofYoung Friends and through cooperation on various projects, Race Street and Twelfth Street finally met together in January 1 956 as Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting; by this time, the joint membership was fewer than 700 Friends. Theological differences remained, as well as tangled property and managerial issues, but members worked through Quaker process to resolve them. Policies regarding same-sex marriage and "Responding to Calls to Ministry" are two results ofthis process which have been found useful by other Meetings. This book will be read with interest by Philadelphia Quakers, by students of the history of Quakerism and of Philadelphia, and by those interested in observing how this "peculiar people" worked through the challenges of two centuries. Caroline CherryEastern University Full ofAdventure: The Memoirs of Grace Scattergood Lowry. Edited by Margaret Hope Bacon. Aston, PA: GCom2 Solutions, 525 Turner Industrial Way, Aston, PA 19014, 2001. 201 pp. Illustrations, chronology, genealogy. $15. The memoirs...

Imperial Fault Lines: Christianity and Colonial Power in India (review)

Reviewed by: Imperial Fault Lines: Christianity and Colonial Power in India, 1818–1940 Kevin Grant Imperial Fault Lines: Christianity and Colonial Power in India, 1818–1940. By Jeffery Cox. Standford: Standford University Press, 2002. Imperial Fault Lines is an important study of Protestant missionary institutions and the development of a hybrid Christianity in the Punjab under British rule. Jeffery Cox sets aside simplistic associations between the bible and the flag to demonstrate that missionaries spent a great deal of their time in laying the groundwork for a Christian community that would survive in their absence. While missionaries clearly participated in the imperial project, it is noteworthy that many influential missionaries regarded the Empire as ephemeral and acknowledged that the future of Christianity depended on the growth and self-governance of indigenous Christian communities. Although, as Cox explains, missionaries and Indian Christians were in many respects engaged in a common enterprise, “fault lines” emerged throughout the Punjabi Christian community as its disparate brethren attempted to answer a basic question: “Can we participate in a shared faith, on the basis of spiritual equality, in an imperial setting?” (16) The imperial setting of the Punjab presented many obstacles to a shared faith and spiritual equality, ranging from economic inequity to conflicts over the conversion of lower castes. Moreover, Cox elucidates theological differences between missions that contributed to fractious competition for converts. What distinguishes this book, and renders it a significant contribution to the history of missions and empire, is the balance that Cox strikes between his meticulous attention to missionary institutions and his discussion of how the great majority of Punjabi Christians developed their own forms of spirituality, piety, and worship beyond the limited reach of pastoral care. At the end of the nineteenth century, Protestant missionaries in the Punjab began a large-scale program of institution building, which constitutes the central subject of Cox’s discussion. In contrast to historical studies of missionary discourse, such as that of Susan Thorne, Cox asserts, “What missionaries built was in many ways more important than what they said.” (52) 1 For example, although women were marginal figures in missionary narratives, they nonetheless outnumbered male missionaries in the Punjab after the 1890’s. While Cox addresses female missionaries’ well known visits to the Zenana, he also elaborates on their leading roles in mission schools and, especially, hospitals. Cox further demonstrates that while government grants facilitated the steady growth of mission schools after 1870, these grants actually rendered the personnel of these schools multireligious. Given that the faculty of mission schools had to meet government standards in order to receive government grants, government normal schools became the sources of the faculty who could meet these standards. Consequently, by 1890, 70% of 750 mission schoolteachers were not Christian. (196) Finally, Cox explains that race had multiple meanings among missionaries that came to fruition in multiracial institutional settings. (95–96) In representing missionary institutions as predominantly female, multireligious, and multiracial, Cox challenges historians of Empire to reconcile the prevailing interpretations of missionary discourses (as masculine, intolerant, and racist) with evidence of the far more complicated work of missionaries on the ground. There were great differences between what missionaries said and what Indians did. For example, Indians did not always perceive the separation between missions and the government, however much missionaries stressed this separation in their publications. The institutional co-operation between missions and the government was evident in the Salvation Army’s management of settlements for criminal tribes, and in the Church Missionary Society’s enthusiastic support for military recruitment campaigns during the Great War. Likewise, despite all of their building projects, missionaries could not structure the ways in which Indians understood and practiced Christianity. Cox acknowledges that he cannot represent the many nuances of the hybrid Christianity of the Punjab, but he nonetheless provides an intriguing sense of this hybridity through song. “It is in Punjabi hymnody, rather than in the bureaucratic creations of the missions,” he states, “that one finds the fullest expression of indigenous Punjabi Christianity.” (148) Departing from the standard repertoire of Christian hymns, Indians wrote their own hymns to bhajan and ghazal tunes (110–112). The rich hybridity of Punjabi Christianity could not, however...

Media and Clergy: Influencing the Influential?

This article examines media use among clergy for purposes of gathering political information. More specifically, it examines the specific forms of both secular and religious media that clergy report using for such purposes. It assesses the extent to which clergy vary in terms of their different patterns of media use; how such differential patterns may be associated with theological, social, and political differences among clergy; and whether such differential patterns of media use are linked to different effects politically.

HOLDING ONTO HOPE: ADDRESSING THEOLOGICAL CONFLICT THROUGH CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

Today deep theological differences threaten to divide Protestant denominations. In turn, these differences often mute church education and block mission. This article seeks to offer glimpses for addressing that theological controversy. It is an exercise in historical retrieval examining a generative period in the history of Christian religious education, that is, the theological conflict between the liberal religious education movement and neo-orthodoxy in the 1930s through 1950s. As Christian educators moved through this earlier conflict, underlying theological commitments and theological practices emerged that offered a faithful politics of hope calling the church to mission.

Meditation and Prayer: A Comparative Inquiry

A famous that many would associate with the Christian tradition states: grant me the to accept what I cannot change, the courage to change what I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. If I use that prayer, however, I say simply Grant me the to accept what I cannot change, the courage to change what I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Despite the fact that many assume that Buddhists do not send forth such verbal requests, I have no hesitation concerning this modified version of the serenity prayer because it has so many Buddhist analogues. In this paper, I will be concerned with three questions. The first is the correctness of the usual impression that is utterly foreign to the nontheistic character of Buddhism. The second question, based upon a negative answer to the first, asks why a nontheistic religion engages in prayer, given that it seems to imply a recipient or listener. Finally, the most theoretical question and hypothetical question concerns what difference, if any, could be posited in the religious experience of praying theists and praying nontheists. One version of the quoted above calls upon God, while the other omits that reference point. That difference in form does reflect major theological differences between Buddhism and Christianity. However, the more interesting question is whether this linguistic shift makes any difference in the experiences of the people praying or in the results of their prayers. Does this have a different effect on me, a Buddhist, than on a Christian, all other things being equal? While empirical studies to test whether differences occur are probably impossible to devise, I would not be surprised to find that these theological opposites mask similarity of experience and results. Because Buddhism and Christianity often seem to be such different religions, indepth comparative theological analyses between these two traditions are fascinating. What can seem like a clear contrast one minute becomes a surprising similarity the next moment. Crossovers abound. It seems that Buddhism denies the existence of self

The construction of the notion of religion in early modern Europe

AbstractThis article traces the construction and use of the notion of "religion" in early modern Europe. The argument is that the concept of "religion" evolved from the medieval ideas of universitas fidelium and conscientia. A look at the writings of Machiavelli and Bodin, as well as the ideas of the English Latitudinarians, reveals that they used the word without reference to theological content and with indifference to theological differences, but, instead, to convey ideas of a common morality for the building of a civil society and a functional statehood.

Gemeinsame Erklärungen der katholischen und evangelischen Kirche zur Ethik

Abstract The joint declarations of the Protestant and Catholic Churches concerning ethical questions express the ecumenical progress achieved so far. However, the present ecumenical tension is obvious in issues conceming the understanding of the church, doctrine, and freedom of conscience. The Catholic Church has recently laid a greater emphasis on the hierarchical, authoritative and binding character of ecclesiastical doctrine in moral issues as weiL For the Protestant Church and theology however freedom of conscience is fundamental. In spite of these theological differences the significance of joint declarations for the future must be emphasized. The arguments of Catholic and Protestant ethics can complement each other in joint declarations. The joint declarations reach !arger parts of today's society than texts worded by only one Church.

GOD CAN MAKE US HEALTHY THROUGH AND THROUGH

CLAUDIA WAHRISCH-OBLAU [*] ON PRAYERS FOR THE SICK AND THE INTERPRETATION OF HEALING EXPERIENCES IN CHRISTIAN CHURCHES IN CHINA AND AFRICAN IMMIGRANT CONGREGATIONS IN GERMANY Let me begin with some personal remarks: When I was asked to present a paper to the working group on Healing in Pentecostal/Charismatic/Independent Churches and Movements, [1] I was somewhat surprised. First of all, even though I have been deeply challenged and influenced by many Pentecostal friends and colleagues, I do not consider myself a or Pentecostal in a denominational sense. I can therefore not write from, but only about a or Pentecostal perspective on faith and healing. Secondly, most of my research has been about healing prayers and healing testimonies within the official Protestant churches in China. While few of these churches are Pentecostal in a denominational sense, [2] prayers for the sick and miracle healing experiences are common in all of them. I found that prayers for healing and faith healing experiences were considered normal expressions of faith even in churches where charismatic phenomena like speaking in tongues would be severely frowned upon, and were interpreted in what I termed a pre-modern paradigm rather than what I thought was Pentecostal thinking. Since then my involvement with immigrant Pentecostal churches in Germany has caused me to re-evaluate what I had seen and heard in China. I now believe that the development of grassroots churches in that country must be interpreted as a truly Pentecostal movement, not in a denominational but in a broader theological sense. [3] In how far this development has been influenced by the worldwide Pentecos tal movement in the past as well as the present is impossible to gauge [4] and anyhow not of concern for this paper. The Pentecostal nature of the grassroots churches is not easily discerned by the outside observer, as they do not call themselves Pentecostal. Furthermore, as they are moving into the realm of the local and provincial Christian councils, they become -- at least superficially -- evangelicalized [5] through the many training programmes run by these organizations. [6] In my work with African and Pentecostal immigrant churches in Germany, [7] I found that prayers for healing are as important within congregational life as they are in China. Despite the enormous cultural differences, my Chinese experiences helped me to relate to what I observed among African Christians, and my experience with African Christians led me to reinterpret what I learned in China. This is why I decided also to include some observations about African immigrant churches in this paper, even though they can only be of a very preliminary nature. There are enormous differences in faith practices and theology between African Independent Churches and neo-Pentecostal ministries, but very little research has been done about any of these churches in Germany, [8] and my own experiences are, of course, limited. I hope that my observations will encourage further research to either prove or disprove my assumptions. I have written this paper because the practices and testimonies of both my Chinese and my African sisters and brothers have been important for my own faith journey. Furthermore, I firmly believe that the practices of prayers for the sick and the experiences of healing testified to in both Chinese and immigrant African churches constitute a challenge for mainline churches that we ignore at our own peril. As mainline churches have delegated healing to medical professionals, prayers for healing to hospital chaplains and political advocacy to public health specialists, our faith in the healing power of the Holy Spirit tends to become a mere dogmatic statement no longer testified to by our congregational life. African and Chinese Christians can help us to win back a holistic perspective that will also reform our practices. …

Culture, Ethnicity, and Inculturation

AbstractThis article discusses the concept "inculturation" from both a critical and constructive perspective. It is concerned with the ideas about "culture" and cultural or ethnic identity that underlie the discourse and practice of inculturation. While inculturation is an important hermeneutical and theological principle it is necessary to be critical of the way in which theologians sometimes employ these notions, in particular in situations of ethnic conflict. The article juxtaposes essentialist and static assumptions about ethnic identity and culture underlying projects of inculturation in Sri Lanka with theoretical, postcolonial perspectives on such identities as "negotiated" or "constructed" in an ongoing cultural process. It considers the possible implications of such a perspective for the practices of inculturation in Sri Lanka, as well as the consequences for the theoretical understanding of the concept inculturation itself. The article criticizes the understanding of cultural or ethnic identity as the foundation of theological inculturation, and raises the question what does constitute such a basis. It argues, first, for an emphasis on the theological basis of inculturation in God's incarnation and saving presence in human cultures. Second, difference of culture rather than cultural identity should constitute the basis for the local construction of theology. Third, it argues that claims for theological difference are always voiced within, and therefore already presuppose, ecumenical or catholic relationships and structures of communication. The article concludes by arguing, on the basis of a "globalized" and postcolonial concept of culture, for an understanding of inculturation that includes other than cultural or ethnic identities as part of its concern with culture, as well as socioeconomic and political processes. It is hoped that a revision of the concept of inculturation along these lines may be more helpful in situations of ethnic conflict, and may also help to bring a convergence between the understanding of inculturation and contextualization.

A Response to Haynes

Haynes' (this issue) engagement with a Winnicottian redescription of Christian spiritual direction relationships and critique of some of Hardy's (this issue) claims are reframed in terms of: methodological differences between the psychology of religion and theological integration of psychology, and theological differences regarding the nature of human-divine interaction. A justification is offered for including transference-countertransference issues in discussions of the role of spiritual directors.

Hans Staden and the Cultural Politics of Cannibalism

Hans Staden and the Cultural Politics of Cannibalism

A call to Civil Society

W ~ come together as citizens of diverse beliefs nd differing political affiliations to issue an appeal for the renewal of the American experiment in selfgovernance. We come together as Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, agreeing to put aside partisan political disputes in order to rediscover our primary institutions and shared civic story. We come together as people of various ethical and faith traditions, agreeing to set aside theological differences in order to rediscover the public moral philosophy that makes our democracy possible. What is the state of our union? Certainly there is much good news. America is the longest-lasting constitutional republic in history. Across the planet, opponents of freedom are on the defensive, as the American idea increasingly becomes the world's idea. Today the United States is not only the world's outstanding superpower, but more importantly, the world's great exemplar of democratic civil society.

The Erotics of Redemption—After Karl Barth

(1998). The Erotics of Redemption—After Karl Barth. Theology & Sexuality: Vol. 1998, No. 8, pp. 52-72.

Under Crescent and Cross. The Jews in the Middle Ages

The exacerbation of Arab-Israeli conflict at the time of the Six-Day War in 1967 gave birth in some quarters to a radical revision of Jewish-Arab history. At stake was the long-standing, originally Jewish, myth of the interfaith utopia, in which medieval Muslims and Jews peacefully cohabited in Arab lands - a utopia that many Arabs claimed had continued until the emergence of modern Zionism. Some Jewish writers challenged this notion with a countermyth of Islamic persecution, suggesting that medieval Jews fared not much better socially and politically under Islamic rule than they did under Christendom. Full of implications for Jewish, Islamic and European historians, both myths form the backdrop of this provocative book, aimed at enriching our understanding of medieval gentile-Jewish relations. It offers an in-depth explanation of why medieval Islamic-Jewish relations, although not utopic, were less confrontational and violent than those between Christians and Jews in the West. The author presents a systematic comparison of the legal, economic and social situations of Jews in medieval Islam and Christendom, offering fresh insights on issues of hierarchy, marginality and ethnicity, persecution and collective memory. His analysis includes differences in theology that helped influence the way Muslims and Christians treated Jews.

To the Attentive, Nonpartisan Reader: The Appeal to History and National Identity in the Religious Disputes of the Seventeenth-Century Netherlands

In the aftermath of the Arminian-Calvinist dispute in Holland, two leaders in the controversy wrote massive histories of the Dutch Reformation. Johannes Uytenbogaert, an Arminian minister in Utrecht and The Hague, published his Kerckelijcke Historie in 1646. Jacob Trigland, a Calvinist minister in Amsterdam, responded in 1650 with his Kerckelijcke Geschiedenissen. Despite significant theological differences, these dueling histories shared three fundamental similarities.They established historical continuity between their doctrinal views and a Reformation heritage; they imputed a distinctly Dutch character to their religious parties; and they engaged a nonpartisan reader in a dialogue between history and myth. Since these histories use the same rhetorical strategy to make a persuasive case to a Dutch audience, they reflect an emerging national identity in the mid-seventeenth century.

Psychological Dynamics of Pastoral Identity

In the research reported in this paper, the psychological dynamics of pastoral identity are explored by relating different dimensions of professional identity to a more general and personal orientation towards others: empathy. Significant differences were found between catholic pastors and protestant ministers. The catholic pastoral ministry is cognitively oriented, separating personal involvement from professional understanding and commitment. The Protestant pastoral ministry is affectively oriented, but expressing a rather ambiguous social involvement. These differences are explained in terms of differences in theology and career motivation.

The Carmelite Order and Greek Orthodox Monasticism: a Study in Retrospective Unity

On his embassy from Constantinople to the papal curia in 1339, the Greek Orthodox envoy Barlaam confided to Benedict XII his pessimistic belief that genuine union between the Churches was rendered impossible less by theological difference than by the shared history of relations between eastern and western Christendom: It is not so much the difference in doctrine that alienates the hearts of the Greeks from you as the hatred against the Latins that has entered their souls because of the great number of evils they have suffered at the hands of the Latins at different times, and which they still suffer every day. Unless this hatred is dispelled, union can never be achieved.

SUSTAINABILITY, EFFICIENCY, AND GOD: Economic Values and the Sustainability Debate

Economics is not only a technical subject; it also reflects a strong set of values. The values embedded in the economic way of thinking are often at odds with the way of thinking of biologists, ecologists, and other physical scientists. Economists value nature in terms of its benefits for human consumption and its usefulness in promoting economic growth. Growth is so critical because it can alleviate material scarcity in the world, and poverty is the true source of evil behavior. A recent dissident group of economists argues that, rather than growth, a more appropriate goal is sustainability. The conflicting values implicit in mainstream economics and in ecological economics partly reflect deep underlying theological differences. These differences can be traced back to old messages of the Judeo-Christian tradition, now being manifested

Killing, karma and caring: euthanasia in Buddhism and Christianity.

In 1993 The Parliament of the World's Religions produced a declaration known as A Global Ethic which set out fundamental points of agreement on moral tissues between the religions of the world. However, the declaration did not deal explicitly with medical ethics. This article examines Buddhist and Christian perspectives on euthanasia and finds that in spite of their cultural and theological differences both oppose it for broadly similar reasons. Both traditions reject consequentialist patterns of justification and espouse a 'sanctity of life' position which precludes the intentional destruction of human life by act or omission.

Borges the Golem-Maker: Intimations of "Presence" in "The Circular Ruins"

Borges the Golem-Maker: Intimations of “Presence” in “The Circular Ruins” Stephen E. Soud The book spoke to me as had my dream, only clearer and more coherently. . . . From an invisible mouth words were streaming forth, turning into living entities, and winging straight towards me. —Gustav Meyrink, The Golem Perhaps the most vexed question in literary studies today involves the fundamental meaning of the literary work: is literature simply one more form of ideological state apparatus (Althusser) or method of surveillance (Foucault)? is the concept of unity possible in the absence of the transcendental signified (Derrida)? can we view literature as having meaning in a post-Nietzschean world? It is, finally, a question of metaphysics. As George Steiner argues in his book Real Presences, “any coherent account of the capacity of human speech to communicate meaning and feeling is, in the final analysis, underwritten by the assumption of God’s presence.” 1 To position Steiner’s comment in a larger critical dialogue, let me cite Harold Bloom’s Kabbalah and Criticism as a foil: “There is the religious illusion, that a poem possesses or creates a real presence. . . . [P]oems don’t have presence, unity, form, or meaning. Presence is a faith, unity is a mistake or even a lie, form is a metaphor, and meaning is an arbitrary and now repetitious metaphysics.”2 As these two arguments illustrate, at stake in recent poststructuralist debate is the metaphysics of poetic presence—even of poetic unity and meaning—in [End Page 739] the literary text. Despite apparent theological differences, however, one of the common points which emerges in the exchange I have represented through Bloom and Steiner is a shared sense of the relevance of kabbalistic interpretation. Bloom’s penchant for kabbalah is well known (he has frequently been charged by his critics with writing “psycho-kabbalism”), but Steiner brings up the issue as well: “deconstruction echoes . . . certain Kabbalistic meditations according to which all speech and writing after the initial Logos-act, after the first and all-creating Word, are more or less superfluous reiteration or epilogue” (Steiner 118–19). It is against this backdrop, the apparent (perhaps unlikely) confluence of kabbalistic and poststructuralist thought, that I would like to consider the problem of presence in Jorge Luis Borges’ “The Circular Ruins” (“Las Ruinas Circulares”). There is a rich tradition of Borges criticism focusing on manifestations of kabbalistic thought in his work; most recently, Edna Aizenberg has examined aspects of this confluence in her essay “Borges and the Hebraism of Contemporary Literary Theory.” 3 But Aizenberg’s work (including The Aleph Weaver), like most of its counterparts, does not elaborate upon the crucial metaphysical dimension of Borges’ use of the golem legend. For Aizenberg (and others), Borges exemplifies the metaphysically post-Nietzschean writer for whom “presence is a sham” (Aizenberg 252). 4 What I will argue instead is that through his use of the legend of the golem in “The Circular Ruins,” Borges explores means of sacralizing the text, of establishing authorial presence in his work. Deconstruction and “The Circular Ruins” Borges’ ficciones have been seized upon as the archetype—or precursor, if you will—of the deconstructed text: stories such as “Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote” offer an agreeably comfortable fit with the deconstructed worldview of textual play enabled by the death of the Author. It is not difficult to imagine how “The Circular Ruins” would be taught in the postmodernist’s classroom: the magician-priest’s recognition that “someone else was dreaming him,” that he is only one in a long chain of dreamers, captures the principles of indeterminacy and infinite deferral in a nutshell. “At this juncture,” one critic writes, referring to the story’s conclusion, “the author vanishes like the disintegrating dreamer dispersed into the [End Page 740] increasing materiality of his own phantasm,” leaving only the “infinity of words” and infinite interpretation in his wake. 5 More politically-minded critics take the opportunity to expose the “social construction of the self,” arguing that “The Circular Ruins” is really an allegory of the constructed (and ultimately ineffable) subject’s impotence in the face of the material forces of society. Such a reading has proven especially useful...