A Trauma-Ridden Body Lifted High: Eschatological Imagination in a Public Square

Public demonstrations shed much meaning when the precarity of the human body’s standing in the public space is considered. This article seeks to decipher the complex messages such instances communicate through a case study of a one-person protest against a multinational conglomerate on a CCTV pole in Seoul. It describes how the body’s precarity generates transformative social imaginations through interdisciplinary analysis. Starting with a thick description of the protester’s and his community’s history, this article interprets the message conveyed in this particular public space through interdisciplinary analysis. The resulting interpretation allows the formation of an eschatological theological imagination which brews with the possibility to transform the public onlooker into participants in such imagination.

Między nekrofilią a objawieniem tajemnicy. Mortualne poszukiwania Ladislava Klímy

Between necrophilia and epiphany: Thanatological fascinations of Ladislav KlímaThanatological themes often appear in Ladislav Klíma’s prose as a characteristic keystone of his anthropological project. In some of the writer’s novel and short stories e.g. Utrpení knížete Sternenhocha, Jak bude po smrti, Slavná Nemesis the topic of death introduces large-scale philosophical or metaphysical speculations. It also functions as a way depicting death which is confirmed in the cultural tradition. In both cases Klíma plays a perverse and complicated game with the typical components of the European eschatological imagination. On the one hand, he shows those components in a grotesque manner, which means treating the human mortality without appriopriate respect and dignity, on the other hand he incorporates thanatological topics into his controversial project of a new cosmogony and deification of man. Mezi nekrohilií a odhaleným tajemstvím. Mortuální hledání Ladislava KlímyMortuální tematika v tvorbě Ladislava Klímy tvoří specifický klíč k jeho antropologickému projektu. V některých Klímových románech a povídkách například Utrpení knížete Sternenhocha, Jak bude po smrti, Slavná Nemesis téma smrti otevírá cestu k široce pojatým filozofickým nebo metafyzickým úvahám a aktivizuje kódy mortuálních obrazů utkvělých v představách tradiční kultury. V obou případech Klíma vede složitou a určitým způsobem přelomovou hru s komponenty tanatického imaginaria umístěného ve všeobecných, skupinových evropských představách. Těmto komponentům propůjčuje groteskní rozměr, čímž zpochybňuje povinnost zobrazování eschatologických motivů s úctou či respektem a začleňuje je do svého — komplikovaného a kontroverzního — projektu nové kosmogonie a koncepce lidské deifikace.

The Groaning of Creation: Expanding our Eschatological Imagination Through the Paschal Mystery

One of the most difficult challenges facing belief in the Christian God is the problem of evil. How can there be a benevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent God, who allows pain, suffering and death in the world? Various theodicies have been constructed to address this question, and historically theologians have pointed to the Fall to explain such pain and suffering. However, theology in a post-evolutionary context is faced with a new challenge; the problem of pain and suffering is amplified by the millions of years of suffering and pain that have occurred before the advent of human beings. Today, the theologian must wrestle with the claim that pain, suffering, and death not only precedes human beings, but are in fact instruments in the very process of creation itself.