What UFOs Have To Do With Philosophy

Last updated on: March 24, 2015 at 11:53 pm By Matthew Tan

The Centre for the Study of Western Tradition at Campion College is glad to host Dr. Chris Fleming, who will present a seminar based on his latest book (co-authored with Emma Jane) Modern Conspiracy: the Importance of Being Paranoid. Dr. Fleming hails from the University of Western Sydney where he Lectures in the School of Humanities and Communication Arts. The paper will explore the intersections between philosophy and the phenomena of conspiracy theories, and ask the question about what our contemporary... Read more

Dexter’s Conversion

Last updated on: March 9, 2015 at 11:11 am By Matthew Tan

There are a number of themes that are constantly explored throughout the television series Dexter, from the constituents of authenticity, belonging, definitions of justice, even sin and redemption. One under-explored theme in the literature concerning the series is the theme of conversion. This can be taken at a literal level, in which Dexter hints at a conversion to an explicitly Christian faith, particularly in season 6, in the course of his troubled friendship with Brother Sam, the convict turned... Read more

Death Drive Jesus

Last updated on: March 3, 2015 at 5:50 am By Matthew Tan

Contrary to popular belief, the materialist notion that all the question of what is needed to sustain biological life is all that a civilisation needs to worry itself with has been put into question by post-modernity, a cultural life form which is shot through with post-secular motifs. It must be stated that everything in postmodernity is still collapsed into the sheer materiality of the commodity. Nevertheless, it is fascinating to see how justifications for consuming those materials changed in the... Read more

Faith in the Church of Facebook

Last updated on: February 25, 2015 at 10:11 pm By Matthew Tan

The folk at Mount St. Mary’s University’s Journal of Moral Theology have earlier this year released a special edition around the topic of technology. The edition includes contributions from the annual Theology and Communications conferences held at the University of Santa Clara and sponsored by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Social Communications. The journal, which can be accessed in full online, includes a contribution by The Divine Wedgie’s Matthew Tan entitled “Faith in the Church of... Read more

Nostalgia & Domination

Last updated on: February 16, 2015 at 4:43 am By Matthew Tan

Events, ages, places or people disappear from our lives all the time. More often than not, these pass without a second thought. There are exceptions, however, for which we exercise a lingering nostalgia, an murmuring desire for their return. More accurately, we hit our mental replay button and find ourselves back in those places, with those people, and living that age. Often, this nostalgia is very closely followed by a sense of loss. This is often at its most... Read more

The Postsecular Zombie

Last updated on: February 9, 2015 at 4:30 am By Matthew Tan

One research thread on an upcoming project on zombies concerns the liminal space that the undead occupy between the secular and the religious. Whilst this is often portrayed as a juxtaposition between the religious undead and the secular living, what has become more apparent as the research progresses is the ways in which the undead actually reflect a postsecular streak running within a seemingly secular urban life. Back in 2000, in Cities of God, Graham Ward wrote about Vampires as... Read more

Faith in Two Foetuses

Last updated on: February 1, 2015 at 10:56 pm By Matthew Tan

There is a rather humorous story in circulation in the blogosphere about a debate on belief between two twins still in their mother’s womb. A point worth noting is the platonic inflection given to the relationship between the twins and their mother, which parallels the patristic understanding of the relationship between God (through Christ) and His creation, whereby God, because he is fully transcendent, is at the same time fully intimate with each of His creatures. According to the... Read more

The Eucharist & the Zombie Apocalypse

Last updated on: January 21, 2015 at 8:14 am By Matthew Tan

Many often talk about cities as being soul destroying, whether it is in reference to a cultural deadening borne from the replacement of theatres, independent stores and galleries with consumerised counterparts (especially via commercial chains), or in reference to the decaying (often brutalist) architecture. A similar insight can be found in the sociologist Jacques Ellul’s The Meaning of the City, in which Ellul warned his readers about cities being more than just boring architecture or sites of waste. For Ellul, cities... Read more

What Kierkegaard Knew About Charlie Hebdo

Last updated on: January 12, 2015 at 3:33 am By Matthew Tan

In an important guest post on Discourses on Liberty, Charles Taylor recalls a work wherein Kierkegaard warned about the dangers of mass media, not as a source of information, but as a site of the manufacturing of false and abstract collectivities, what he called a “phantom public”. The danger of this “phantom public” was twofold. The first danger was that, precisely because “the public” is a media manufactured abstraction, it served to remove the media consumer from the reality... Read more

The Most Read Posts of 2014

Last updated on: December 31, 2014 at 2:11 am By Matthew Tan

As we sit on the threshold of another new year, it is time to look back on the year that was 2014, a year that saw a intercontinental move from America back to Australia, and a slew of deaths of important theological voices, including that of that great voice of the liberal arts, Stratford Caldecott. We also look back on the year that was at the Divine Wedgie and have included below three posts that received the largest number... Read more