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I’m happy to report that W. Ezekiel Goggin & I have signed a contract to co-write a book on the modern reception of medieval mysticism for Routledge’s Contemporary Theological Explorations in Mysticism series.

The original title of the proposal was Exterminating Angels (based on a saying of the Romantic writer Jean Paul Richter), but we eventually arrived at something much more straightforward: Mysticism & Materialism in the Wake of German Idealism. While I don’t want to spoil too much here, the book should include chapters aiming to bring together the voices of Angela of Foligno, Meister Eckhart, Johann Tauler, Catherine of Siena, Kant, Fichte, Novalis, Hegel, Marx, & Bataille.

It should be a wild (but completely academically responsible) ride!

Recently, I wrote an article for Sightings, a publication of the Divinity School at the University of Chicago. The piece, entitled “Time in Coronatide: Why We’re Not Actually Living in Groundhog Day,” takes its lead from a number of journalistic essays in venues like the Atlantic & the New Yorker, all of which speculate on how our experience of time might be altered by newly COVID-dictated schedules. By interrogating these essays alongside takes harvested from social media (mostly Twitter, where I first learned of the quasi-liturgical #Coronatide) and pop culture (e.g., The Last Dance documentary about Michael Jordan), I tried to push back against overly glib readings of our current situation, such as those likening it to old Bill Murray movies. The piece also aims to introduce some basic elements of the research that went into my recent book, especially when it comes to the differences between Augustine & the Stoics on the question of whether it makes any sense to “live in (or for) the present moment.”

I feel fortunate to be able to announce that for the next couple of years I’ll be serving as Interim Secretary for the American Cusanus Society. The Society is  devoted to the study of Nicholas of Cusa, his pathbreaking ideas, and the unique role he played within his own era (broadly situated at the intersection of the late Middle Ages & the humanist Renaissance). While members of the group come at Cusanus from a variety of angles, ranging from the history of mathematics to late medieval Christian-Muslim interactions, I’m most drawn to Nicholas’ contributions to the mystical tradition in works like De Docta Ignorantia, De Visione Dei, and De Non Aliud. If you’re interested in learning more about Nicholas of Cusa, check out the Society’s  website here.

I’m happy to report that the hard copies of my book Reading Augustine: On Time, Change, History, & Conversion have arrived up here in Edmonton. The book was already released (in paperback, hardcover, & e-book formats) back in April, but it’s still nice to get to enjoy the concrete manifestation of years of effort. On to the next project!

My book for Bloomsbury’s Reading Augustine series has officially been released as of today, April 16, 2020! Entitled On Time, Change, History, & Conversion, it can now be ordered in hardcover, paperback, or e-book formats. Here’s a link to the Bloomsbury site.

I’ll paste here the blurb from the Bloomsbury site, followed by the table of contents, just to offer a basic idea of what the book aims to accomplish:

Sean Hannan offers a new interpretation of Augustine of Hippo’s approach to temporality by contrasting it with contemporary accounts of time drawn from philosophy, political theology, and popular science. Hannan argues that, rather than offering us a deceptively simple roadmap forward, Augustine asks us to face up to the question of time itself before we take on tasks like transforming ourselves and our world.

Augustine discovered that the disorientation we feel in the face of change is a symptom of a deeper problem: namely, that we cannot truly comprehend time, even while it conditions every facet of our lives. This book puts Augustine into creative conversation with contemporary thinkers, from Pierre Hadot and Giorgio Agamben to Steven Pinker and Stephen Hawking, on questions such as the definition of time, the metaphysics of transformation, and the shape of history. The goal is to learn what Augustine can teach us about the nature of temporality and the possibility of change in this temporal world of ours.

Table of Contents

1. The Reality of Time: Between Idealism and Materialism
2. A Brief Theology of Time: From Creation to the Eschaton
3. Enlightenment Never: Eschatology Without Progress
4. Do Not Live in the Now: A Critique of Mindfulness
5. The Instant of Indecision: Possibility of Personal Change
6. The Time Is Not Now: Activism Despite Quietism
Conclusion: The Life’s Future

Reviews

“For Augustine of Hippo, time is a difficult and yet indispensable beloved. Sean Hannan deftly takes us into the soul-stretch that defines Augustine’s ambivalence toward time and complicates the finality of his final things. This book is witty, insightful, and relevant.”
–  James Wetzel, Villanova University, USA

“This is one of the most engaging and insightful recent books on Augustine of Hippo. Sean Hannan’s precise treatment unfolds the vast implications of Augustine’s understanding of time.”
–  Thomas Clemmons, Catholic University of America, USA

“Sean Hannan sketches Augustine of Hippo’s tensive view of time as indecisive yet activist, distended yet eschatological. This timely book makes a lasting contribution to one of the perennial problems in Augustine scholarship.”
–  Willemien Otten, University of Chicago, USA

“Working at the juncture of historical and contemporary thought, Sean Hannan offers a provocative and insightful examination into the enduring philosophical and theological problem of human temporality. This book draws our attention to Augustine of Hippo’s enduring ability to illuminate a range of issues we continue to debate today.”
–  Matthew Drever, University of Tulsa, USA

 

Some time ago, Valla McLean at MacEwan Libraries posted a new & updated page devoted to the work being done in the Digital Humanities here at MacEwan. If you click on the link, you’ll find a list of ongoing projects covering both research and pedagogy, with a special focus on the disciplines of Classics, English, and History.

The site also features some deeper dives into specific examples of pedagogy informed by the Digital Humanities, ranging from podcasting and app-creation to mapping, timelines, and quantitative textual analysis. I was fortunate enough to get the chance to contribute a couple of pieces to Valla’s page, including one on Villanova’s app-version of Augustine’s Confessions and another on how best to go about quantitatively measuring student feedback regarding assignments designed in light of Digital Humanities pedagogy.   

This is just a quick update to post a photo I received recently from Valentino Gasparini, one of the organizers of last week’s successful conference on Lived Ancient Religion in North Africa, held at Madrid’s Universidad Carlos III. After sharing our talks on the life & afterlife of Augustine of Hippo, we four intrepid presenters fielded a series of thoughtful questions from the audience. A productive exchange was then enjoyed by all.

I’m happy to report that last week’s Lived Ancient Religion in North Africa conference went off without a hitch. Hosted by the Universidad Carlos III in Madrid and organized by Valentino Gasparini & Maria Fernandez Portaencasa,  the event gathered archaeologists alongside historians of both the material & textual records in order to better understand ‘religion’ as lived praxis in Roman Africa, Numidia, & Mauretania. Here’s a link to LARNA’s FB page, from which the above image was taken.

My paper, “Optatus of Milevis & the Improvisation of Universalism,” sought to read Optatus’ anti-Donatist writings as an example of lived religion and improvisatory praxis in late antiquity. While Augustine of Hippo is usually (& not wrongly) regarded as the theorist of Christian universalism against the Donatists, Optatus pre-dates Augustine as a universalizing force in North Africa. Unlike Augustine, however, Optatus does not begin with theory & end with praxis; instead, he begins with the practical situation & arrives at his universalist commitments on that concrete basis, thereby more effectively speaking universalism into existence for his audience.

Eventually, the conference proceedings will be coming out with Brill. The next task for me, then, is to turn this 20-minute talk into a more substantive chapter, perhaps by elaborating on the methodology of “lived religion” as articulated by Jörg Rüpke in light of the work of Michel de Certeau.

To my pleasant surprise, I was just informed that my piece on the ‘specious present’ in William James & Augustine has already been published in the journal Consensus (40.2). Check it out here! (But beware Brentano in the margins…)

This is the end-result of my research efforts this summer in support of the 2019 Cheiron conference on the history of psychology & the behavioural sciences, which was hosted here at MacEwan University in Edmonton. Thanks go out again to Nancy Digdon, Michael Dawson, & the rest of the Cheiron team. It was great to get out of my Augustinian comfort zone, if only for a little while.

There are a number of other cool pieces in this edition of Consensus, as well. Check out the full table of contents here.

 

I’m happy to announce that my entry in Bloomsbury’s Reading Augustine series is now available for pre-order! Its title is On Time, Change, History, & Conversion.

My goal in this book is to provide a reader-friendly entry into the complexities of Augustine of Hippo’s philosophy of time. In line with the spirit of the Bloomsbury series, I’ve aimed to put Augustine into conversation with modern realist theories about time, twentieth-century debates in the physics of space-time, & twenty-first-century attitudes about “progress.” As a result, there should be something for just about everyone in there somewhere.

Here are some screenshots of the Table of Contents, just to provide a better idea of what’s in store: