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 as well as the aporias of transcendence in Jürgen Habermas’ theory of secular reason. Examples of my work 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. I am Program Leader for the funded Religion in Political Life (RIPL) Research at the Humanities Research Institute. In terms of teaching, I am the Program Convenor for Theology (DipTh, BTh, GradCert, MTh), and teach courses in World Religions (RELI1010), Children of Abraham (RELI2050) and the New Visibility of Religion (RELI3060). I welcome Honours and PhD research applications on a range of topics related to the above. Further details on my work are available at http://timothywstanley.com

My office hours for semester 1, 2013 are wednesdays 1-2pm, or by appointment.

Qualifications

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

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Research

Research keywords

• Karl Barth
• Martin Heidegger
• Metaphysics
• Philosophical Theology
• Political Religion

Research expertise

Religion in Political Thought

My research on religion in political thought was inspired by my association with the Centre for Religion and Political Culture at the University of Manchester. It now continues at the University of Newcastle, Australia, as Program Leader for the Faculty of Education and Arts Research funding on Religion in Political Life for 2012-13 ($100k).

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. However, religion is not a single faceted phenomenon. My research addresses this complexity through analysis of the key religious ideas which inform western notions of civil society and the public sphere.

For instance, my work on Jürgen Habermas’s understanding of The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, focused on his account of religion. 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 problematic manner in which Habermas frames religion within secular philosophical notions of transcendence. Habermas refers to this as a "transcendence from within" and it was at this point that I began a constructive dialogue with the political nature of Karl Barth’s theology, which specifically addressed this question of theological immanence and materialism.

Protestant Metaphysics after Karl Barth and Martin Heidegger

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. This research was funded by the British Government's Universities UK Overseas Research Scholarship as well as the University of Manchester's internal funding. Protestant Metaphysics after Karl Barth and Martin Heidegger

Collaboration

Currently I collaborate with colleagues here at Newcastle through the funded Religion in Political Life (RIPL) research program hosted in the Humanities Research Institute. The research environment for this project is exemplary. Recent appointments of A/Prof. Roland Boer, Dr. Kath McPhillips and Prof. John McDowell have strengthened the existing expertise of Prof. Hilary Carey and Emer. Prof. Terry Lovat. In the recent Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) evaluation, Religion and Religious Studies (2204) at this university rated 3 - at world standard. This excellence reflects the significant commitment by the Faculty of Education and Arts. We welcome PhD applications relevant to our various research interests, as well as Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career (DECRA) and Linkage projects.

Fields of Research

Code	Description	Percentage
220401	Christian Studies (Incl. Biblical Studies And Church History)	50
220405	Religion And Society	50

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)

Invitations

Morpeth Lecture Anglican Diocese of Newcastle and the University of Newcastle, Australia (Invited Presenter)

2012

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Administrative

Administrative expertise

Program Convenor for Theology (DipTh, BTh, GradCert, MTh).

Program Leader for the Religion in Political Life Research at the Humanities Research Institute: http://www.newcastle.edu.au/institute/humanities-research/programmes-of-research/ripl/

Convenor for the Group for Religious and Intellectual Traditions: http://www.newcastle.edu.au/school/hss/research/groups/grit/

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Teaching

Teaching keywords

• Comparative Theology
• Political Theology
• Religious Ethics
• World Religions

Teaching expertise

Most semesters I teach courses which address the complex nature of religion in the world today. My aim is to introduce key themes for each course, but also to foster habits of the mind such as curiosity, open-mindedness, empathy, and intellectual passion. It seems to me that these are the habits that make a liberal arts degree so valuable today, and are imperative for our multi-religious societies.

My lectures are interactive and always include time for discussion of key readings. Each week covers a topic relevant to an assessment item, in order to help students succeed. My hope is that something in the class time will get students interested and inspire them to do their own thinking and research.

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

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 (2013 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

RELI2050 Children of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Sem 2, 2013, Callaghan/Online) http://www.newcastle.edu.au/course/RELI2050.html

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

RELI3030 How to Study Religion: Methods and Theory (2011, Sem 2, Callaghan/Online) http://www.newcastle.edu.au/course/RELI3030.html

RELI3060 The New Visibility of Religion (2013 Sem 2, Callaghan/Online) http://www.newcastle.edu.au/course/RELI3060.html

RELI3070 Jewish Thought after the Holocaust (Forthcoming, Callaghan/Online) http://www.newcastle.edu.au/course/RELI3070.html

RELI4001/THEO4001 Religious Studies Honours Methods and Theory (Ongoing, Callaghan) http://www.newcastle.edu.au/course/RELI4001.html

RELI4002/THEO4002 Religious Studies Honours Directed Reading (Ongoing, Callaghan) http://www.newcastle.edu.au/course/RELI4002.html

RELI4003/THEO4003 Religious Studies Honours Thesis 1 (Ongoing, Callaghan) http://www.newcastle.edu.au/course/RELI4003.html

RELI4004/THEO4004 Religious Studies Honours Thesis 2 (Ongoing, Callaghan) http://www.newcastle.edu.au/course/RELI4004.html