The Vietnam War and Theologies of Memory Time and Eternity in the Far Country

by Tran, Jonathan

• ISBN13: 9781405183208
• ISBN10: 1405183209
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-05-10
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

The Vietnam War and Theologies of Memory develops a theological analysis of the American war in Vietnam and constructs a Christian account of memory in relation to this tragic conflict.An elegantly written reflection of memory and forgiveness, this unique work explores the ecclesial practice of memory in relation to the American war in Vietnam Questions how and why we choose to remember atrocity, and asks whether it is ever ethical to simply forget Explores the theological categories of time and eternity, and the ideas of thinkers including Aquinas, Augustine, and Barth Reveals broader insights about history, memory, and redemption Resonates beyond the field of theological inquiry by offering a broader analysis of war entirely relevant to our time

Author Biography

Jonathan Tran is Assistant Professor of Theological Ethics in the Department of Religion, Baylor University. He has published widely in academic journals and is the author of Theology and Foucault (forthcoming).

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
Time and Its Discontents	p. 13
Out Time in Vietnam	p. 15
The Divine Kenosis and Being-Toward-Death	p. 16
"Our Time" in Vietnam	p. 21
"When Time Is Nothing but Speed"	p. 28
Killing Time	p. 35
Boredom and Atrocity	p. 38
God and the Ordinary	p. 48
Created Time	p. 57
Christological Time	p. 59
"The Detemporalization of Time"	p. 60
Being and Time	p. 64
The Goodness of Death	p. 68
The Spiritual Life of the Age	p. 74
A Time of Idols	p. 82
The Fragility of Time	p. 90
The Sorrow of the Exile: Trinity, Memory, and Return	p. 94
Trinity and Mind	p. 97
Trinity and Forgetting	p. 101
Forgetting God	p. 104
Desire and Return	p. 107
The Witness of the Martyrs	p. 113
Authentic Temporality	p. 118
Memory and the Americans in Vietnam	p. 121
Saving Our Lives with a Story: Memory and Narrative	p. 123
The Case of Forgetting	p. 127
Realism and Narrative	p. 130
From Paradox to Mimesis	p. 136
From Mimesis to Forgiveness	p. 146
Trinity, Forgiveness, and Gift	p. 150
Forgiveness as Gift Exchange	p. 157
The Gift of New Stories	p. 159
Re-performing the Dark Night of the Soul: Memory and Liturgy	p. 167
Two Views of Liturgical Memory	p. 171
Liturgies of War	p. 176
Incomplete Killers	p. 180
Rival Liturgies	p. 189
God's Acting on Time	p. 193
"Out of the Night"	p. 197
Eucharistic Re-membering: Memory and Politics	p. 201
National Memory	p. 209
Suspending Time	p. 212
Walling Memory	p. 217
Resurrection as National Mythos	p. 221
Depoliticizing Memory	p. 227
Superpower Biopolitics and the Possibility of Fugitive Bodies	p. 230
Spectral Others in Beloved	p. 238
Ghosts and the Moreness of Time: Lillian Smith's Killers of the Dream	p. 245
Tending Memory: Listening, Traveling, and Tabling	p. 251
Eucharistic Memory	p. 262
Eucharist as Traveling Table	p. 266
The Politics of Re-membering	p. 270
Soundings	p. 274
Index	p. 282
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