Dr Timothy ( Tim ) Stanley

Biography

I am a Lecturer in the Philosophy, Religion and Theology Discipline Area at the UoN. My research in theology and continental philosophy of religion has led to projects on the theological meaning of "being" after Karl Barth and Martin Heidegger, the aporias of transcendence in Jürgen Habermas’ theory of secular reason, as well as my current work which develops a philosophical theology of the codex book form of early Christian literature. I am the Program Leader for the Religion in Political Life Research Program and Convenor for the research Group for Religious and Intellectual Traditions (GRIT) at the UoN. I welcome PhD supervisions on a wide range of topics and teach courses in World Religions (RELI1010) and the New Visibility of Religion (RELI3060). Examples of my research can be found in journals such as Modern Theology, New Blackfriars and Political Theology, as well as the recent book, Protestant Metaphysics after Karl Barth and Martin Heidegger. Further details about my work can be found below as well as on my website: http://timothywstanley.com

Office hours for semester 1, 2012: Mon-Wed, 1-2pm

Qualifications

• PhD, University of Manchester - England, 2008
• Master of Arts, University of Manchester - England, 2004

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Research

Research keywords

• Philosophy of Religion
• Theology

Research expertise

Religion in Political Life (Ongoing)

My research on the new visibility of religion in political life has been inspired by my association with the Centre for Religion and Political Culture at the University of Manchester, and now continues as Program Leader of the Religion in Political Life Research Program in the Faculty of Education and Arts at the UoN.

Currently, religion and globalization seem to be working towards opposite ends. As Mark Juergensmeyer has noted in Religion and Global Civil Society, while religiously invoked terrorism fragments society, the Internet, cell phones and the media industry foster the formation of an increasingly global social fabric. But religion is not a single faceted phenomenon. As much as there have been prophets of violence, there have been prophets of peace and reconciliation. How a civil society might be configured in relation to the inherent ambiguity surrounding religious traditions remains difficult to discern.

My research in this area has analysed the structure of Jürgen Habermas's understanding of the public sphere which maintains that democratic societies must be open to all. As Craig Calhoun recently summed up in The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere, "It is imperative to include religious citizens both as a matter of fairness and as a matter of urgent practicality. Religiously informed actors... matter so much in contemporary political life that we endanger the future of the democratic polity if we cannot integrate them into the workings of public reason." My research has thus far interrogated the sometimes paradoxical tensions which emerge from Habermas's understanding of the relationship between faith, transcendence and public reason. In this regard I began a constructive dialogue with the political nature of Karl Barth's theology.

Theological Legacies of the Codex Book (2010-14)

At the moment, my research theologically interprets the transition from scrolls to the codex book form in the third and fourth centuries of the common era, a transition intimately bound up with the rise of Christianity itself. What concerns me here is the manner in which this technological development gives insight into western philosophical notions of access, universalism, canonicity and cosmopolitanism. My dialogue partners in this regard take my past work on Barth and Heidegger in new directions with Jacques Derrida on the (a)metaphysical nature of writing, and Giorgio Agamben and Slavoj Zizek with reference to St. Paul’s universalism. A book, loosely titled Catholicity after Codex is aimed at publication in 2014.

Protestant Metaphysics after Karl Barth and Martin Heidegger (2004-09)

What is the legacy of the Greek metaphysical tradition for Protestant Christianity? Two of the most influential twentieth century thinkers to answer this question are Karl Barth and Martin Heidegger. However, the relationship between their work remains ambiguous within contemporary scholarship. My research challenges both an oversimplified conflation of Barth and Heidegger’s thought as well as the pretense that an (a)theist philosopher and dogmatic theologian have little to say to each other. The result of this juxtaposition is a clear articulation of two different ways of refiguring the historically problematic relationship between metaphysics and theology after the Protestant Reformation. Whereas Heidegger interpreted Luther in a way which ultimately led to a divorce between metaphysics and theology, Barth saw Luther as the progenitor of a non-foundationalist affirmation of the being of God. In either case the boundaries between theology and philosophy were radically reconfigured in ways which continue to dominate both disciplines to this day. Protestant Metaphysics after Karl Barth and Martin Heidegger has been published in June of 2010 by SCM Press http://amzn.to/pmkbmh3

Collaboration

I welcome research applications on a wide range of topics, and am particularly keen to supervise students interested in the intersections between religion and political life as well as the philosophical theology which follows after Barth and Heidegger.

I am the current Convenor for the Group for Religious and Intellectual Traditions (GRIT), which is based in the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Newcastle. Its collaborative work focuses on the philosophical, theological, cultural and historical study of the intersection between religion and intellectual traditions. For further information on its members, as well as its seminars, public lectures, symposiums and other publication and funding outcomes please click on the group's link below.

Fields of Research

Code	Description	Percentage
220405	Religion And Society	65
229999	Philosophy And Religious Studies Not Elsewhere Classified	30
160699	Political Science Not Elsewhere Classified	5

Centres and Groups

Centre

• Humanities Research Institute

Group

• Group for Religious and Intellectual Traditions

Memberships

Learned Academy.

• Member (American Academy of Religion)
• Member (Society of Biblical Literature)

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Teaching

Teaching expertise

Every lecturer teaches differently so let me explain a bit how my courses work. Most semesters I teach courses which have blended online and face-to-face options. That is, all of my courses are available for students to take face to face in class, completely online, or a mix of both to suit their schedules. This is possible because all course materials are available in the online Blackboard (readings beyond textbooks, bibliographies, assessment submission), and each week’s face to face lecture is recorded as a Quicktime .MOV file which is then available for download from the UoN’s lecture hosting system Echo360. The recording includes a voiceover the PowerPoint presentation, which most students find as an excellent echo of the class time they were unable to attend. For an example see my Vimeo page here: http://vimeo.com/timothywstanley

Depending on the course level at first, second or third year, assessment items include one or two short essays (1000 words), one long research essay (2000 words) and then 5-8 online quizzes or discussion board posts which relate to weekly readings.

Each lecture aims to introduce key themes from the readings to help students focus on important passages and learn to read more critically for quizzes and discussion board posts. As well, they relate to the topics for the essays, which help students recognize their interests and get them started on researching those aspects of the course that most interest them. For instance, in the first year World Religions course (RELI1010), there are lectures which corresponds to the research essay topics on the meaning of Jihad in Islamic thought as well as Jewish-Christian relations after the holocaust. So, if you’re interested in a topic, the lecture is provided as a face to face and online resource to get you started.

My marking practices are critical but fair, and I do my best to prepare students to grow in their understanding and application of the scholarly practices which result in their future success. I typically provide at least one essay writing workshop during each course.

When students were surveyed as to whether “Overall, I am satisfied with the quality of this course,” the majority of students taking my courses in 2011 strongly agreed. On average all of my courses scored 4.74 out of 5 for this question on the UoN's Student Feedback on Courses survey.

Please click the links below for the UoN Course Tracking System which gives more detail on my courses' content and objectives. I'm also available via the contact details above.

RELI1010 World Religions (2011, 2012 Sem 1, Callaghan/Online) http://www.newcastle.edu.au/course/RELI1010.html

RELI2030 Reel Religion (2012 Sem 2, Callaghan/Online) http://www.newcastle.edu.au/course/RELI2030.html

THEO3001 Religious Ethics (2011, 2012 Sem 1, Callaghan/Online) http://www.newcastle.edu.au/course/THEO3001.html

RELI3030 Religion, Ritual and Consciousness (2011, Sem 2, Callaghan/Online, TBC 2013) http://www.newcastle.edu.au/course/RELI3030.html

RELI3060 The New Visibility of Religion (2012 Sem 2, Callaghan/Online) http://www.newcastle.edu.au/course/RELI3060.html

RELI4001 Religious Studies Honours Methods and Theory (2011, Sem 2, Callaghan) http://www.newcastle.edu.au/course/RELI4001.html

RELI4002 Religious Studies Honours Directed Reading (2012, Sem 1, Callaghan) http://www.newcastle.edu.au/course/RELI4002.html

RELI4003 Religious Studies Honours Thesis 1 http://www.newcastle.edu.au/course/RELI4003.html

RELI4004 Religious Studies Honours Thesis 2 http://www.newcastle.edu.au/course/RELI4004.html