Violence, entitlement, and politics: a theology on transforming the subject

"This book is an exercise in political theology, exploring the problem of gender-based violence by focusing on violent male subjects and the issue of entitlement. It addresses gender-based violence in familial and military settings before engaging with a wider political context. The chapters draw on sources ranging from Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and Étienne Balibar to Rowan Williams and Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. Entitlement is theorized and interpreted as a gender pattern, predisposing subjects toward controlling behaviour and/or violent actions. Steven Ogden develops a theology of transformation, stressing immanence. He examines entitled subjects, predisposed to violence, where transformation requires a limit-experience that wrenches the subject from itself. The book also reflects on today's pervasive strongman politics, where political rationalities foster proprietorial thinking and entitlement gender patterns, and how theology is called to develop counter-discourses and counter-practices"--

Intro -- Half Title -- Series Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Reference works -- 1. The problem of gender-based violence -- What was he thinking? -- Foucault and theology -- Foucault's changing subject -- The entitled man and strongman politics -- Articulating theology's political vocation -- A theology of transformation -- Chapter outline -- Notes -- References -- 2. Violence, entitlement, and politics -- The rationalities that shape subject formation -- A way of reading violence -- The age of security: Biopolitics, fear, and the logic of pre-emption -- The dispositif -- Violence -- A history of violence -- The entitlement gender pattern -- Violence and masculinity -- The dispositif of strongman politics -- The manhood-politics relation -- Notes -- References -- 3. The significance of entitlement -- Entitlement -- Intimate partner violence -- On men who murder women -- I know I did the right thing (because I have the right to do it) -- Entitlement discourses and practices -- Using others as objects -- Proprietorial thinking -- I stole what is mine -- The strategic and urgent defence of entitlement -- The brotherhood -- What is at stake? Pre-emption and the fear of losing entitlements -- Made to feel like a woman -- Notes -- References -- 4. Foucault, Confession, and Transformation -- Overview -- A critique of premodern churches in the Latin West -- A sense of obligation -- Foucault and transformation -- A truth-telling life -- An alternative trajectory -- The concept of desubjectivation -- Extending and developing the concept of desubjectivation -- Notes -- References -- 5. A theology of transformation -- Overview -- Rowan Williams -- Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza -- The triptych of Nicodeumus (Jn 3:1-15 -- 7:45-52 -- 19:38-42) -- After God? -- The lens of eternal life -- The transformation of Nicodemus.