The Place of Place in Liturgical Theology Público
Pierce, Matthew (Spring 2018)
Abstract
This thesis draws upon “place theory” to develop a new method for analyzing liturgical spaces while attending to the challenges of appropriating non-theological resources for theological purposes. To illustrate both the challenges of such appropriations as well as the potential gains, the new analytic method is developed in conversation with liturgical theology, which itself evinces reticence of drawing upon non-theological sources, especially the human sciences.
The first chapter locates the project within the traditional foci of liturgical studies, then introduces the major tasks of liturgical theology. The second chapter examines recent theological reflection on “place,” identifying the similarities with liturgical theology as well as important patterns—especially the use of spatial metaphors and pairings—within the arguments of theological reflection on place. The third chapter examines these patterns through the lens of phenomenology and neuroscience, suggesting that the shape of discourse on place has its origins in the particularities of human anatomy and physiology. These patterns indicate not only aspects of human emplacement, but also tools for place-making, thus allowing us to employ them as an analytic method for studying the creation and sustaining of places. The final chapter turns this new method upon early Methodist love feasts, which often did not meet in traditional “liturgical spaces.”
The resulting method for analyzing liturgical space extends the analytic reach of liturgical studies by enabling the analysis of ad hoc, impermanent places and the identification of some of the specific communal and individual goods entailed in the maintenance of ritual boundaries. Further, the method identifies a link between the maintenance of such boundaries and opportunities for greater freedom and openness within the group. Finally, this method sheds new light on the relationship between discourse about place and practices of place-making.
Table of Contents
Introduction, Walking through Recent Places 1
Material Matters 4
Hidden in Plain Sight 8
Together in One Place 10
Chapter 1, The Place of Place in Liturgical Studies 12
Turning to Place 14
The Problem with “Place” 19
The Place of Departure 22
The Chief Tasks of Liturgical Theology 23
Putting Place Alongside Liturgical Theology 50
Chapter 2, The Place of Place in Theology 54
The Turn to Place in Philosophy 55
The Vocabulary of Place 62
Materiality Affirmed in Word and Method 92
Looking Back on Place 106
Chapter 3, Place-Making as Technology 109
The Disappearing Body 112
Looking Back through the Disappearing Body 117
Excursus: Onto-Valuational Dualism, Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi,
Place and Space 120
Spatial Metaphors We Live By 124
Place-Making as a Technology 142
Durable Effects of Another Sort 151
Understanding Emplacement through the Body 155
Chapter 4, The Love Feast as Place, The Liturgy as Place-Making 157
Love Feast in Its Methodist Context 160
The Ins and Outs of an Ad Hoc Place 165
Felt but Unseen Dimensions of an Ad Hoc Place 169
“Whither Grace?” 174
Zero Sum 177
Discourse and Practice 181
Conclusion, Remembering to Forget 185
From Embodiment to Emplacement 185
Gaining Ground 190
Next Steps 195
Before We Depart 196
Bibliography 197
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