I spent today tracking down books from the seminary library and from Firestone at Princeton University, for my paper for my Dionysian course. It’s the one course I’m struggling with enjoying the most, and although I’m taking it Pass/Fail, the paper is our only grade in the course and therefore, it needs to be good. My paper is going to deal with Dionysius and Derrida, and their use of apophatic (negative) theology and their use of language – and how Derrida is the vehicle to get Dionysian apophatic theology to speak to us today in the emerging church in the postmodern culture. My official paper proposal (and bibliography) is here. I’m actually really intimidated to start trying to read Jacques Derrida, especially after Tony told me he is really really hard to understand. But really, I’m not too worried; I mean, it’s not like any of these titles sound intimidating: Derrida and Negative Theology; In the Shadow of the Divine: Negative Theology and Negative Anthropology in Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysius and Eriugena; Unknow Thyself: Apophaticism, Deconstruction and Theology after Ontotheology; The Darkness of God: Negativity in Christian Mysticism; Denying Divinity: Apophasis in the Patristic Christian and Soto Zen-Buddhist Traditions; and The Negative Language of the Dionysian School of Mystical Theology…No problem.
