Přednáška prof. Silvany Rabinovich: The difficult and urgent task of decolonizing political theology

Ever since Carl Schmitt introduced the concept of “political theology” to argue that modern political institutions rest on secularized theological concepts, the relationship between religion and politics has been reconsidered beyond Modernity's presumed disenchantment tendencies. However, engaging in these debates should not lead to the endorsement of authoritarian standpoints or justifying the legacies of colonialism through theological rhetoric, as Schmitt’s project ended up doing. In contrast, this presentation will explore a different horizon by examining the scope and implications of decolonizing political theology.

The discussion will elaborate on Silvana Rabinovich’s two recently published books (Palgrave McMillan, 2022; Routledge, 2024) to enable a creative exchange between Latin American and Palestine-Israeli responses to diverse forms of colonization. On the one hand, it will follow Latin American thinkers like Anibal Quijano, who denounced enduring domination structures as the “coloniality of power,” and Enrique Dussel, who envisioned a different type of power to advocate for the liberation of the oppressed. On the other hand, it will expand on the work of Jewish thinkers like Franz Rosenzweig and Martin Buber to analyze how the secularization of the Hebrew language resulted in the instrumentalization of biblical figures to legitimize settler-colonialist projects.

By calling upon the ethical promises of translation and reading history "against the grain," as Walter Benjamin urged us to do, the conversation aims to inspire us to exercise utopian hope in confronting crises that appear to have reached an apocalyptic phase today.