Religious Studies at Stanford - 2008 Graduate Conference on Religion

There, Where I Am Not: Approaching the Discourse of Transcendence

Graduate Conference on Religion

Stanford University Department of Religious Studies and Stanford Humanities Center

April 25-26, 2008

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In considering the possibility of a space beyond embodiment and language, attempts to deal with transcendence in religious discourse often leap headfirst into some of the murkiest paradoxes of thought and desire. This predicament has also been a tremendous source of creativity, particularly when that discourse finds itself struggling with the limits of its own language and is forced to seek out new, even heretical approaches that shuttle between the realms of philosophy, poetry, and silence.

As scholars who deal with religion, we have decisions to make: Are we to ignore claims to transcendence, to treat them simply as reported speech? Are we to explain all claims about a transcendent beyond as arising within and dealing with issues of the ordinary world? If so, what languages and strategies do we have at our disposal to enact this kind of explanation? What, if anything, does the opposition between transcendence and immanence mean to us today?

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Amy Hollywood

Robert Sharf

It seems that I would always fare well there, where I am not, and this question of dislocation is one that I discuss incessantly with my soul. Baudelaire, Anywhere out of the world.

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