Bare Life and Divine Violence: Benjamin, Levinas, and Ethics of Interruption

Diako Alikhani rereads Benjamin’s divine violence through Levinas, arguing that bare life is where mythic law and ethical interruption confront one another.

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BOOK REVIEW: YASCHA MOUNK, THE IDENTITY TRAP: A STORY OF IDEAS AND POWER IN OUR TIME (NEW YORK: PENGUIN PRESS, 2023).

Kevin Grane reviews Yascha Mounk’s The Identity Trap, whose sharpest contribution is showing how the identity synthesis undercuts its own egalitarian aims.

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Registration Now Open: Religion, Politics, and Cognitive Warfare

Registration is now open for the online JCRT conference Religion, Politics, and Cognitive Warfare: Information, Interpretation, Conspiracy, and the Struggle for Reality, taking place October 1-3, 2026.

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Book Review Section Relaunched

JCRT Relaunches Its Book Review Section, Inviting Graduate Students, Independent Scholars, and Faculty to Contribute

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JCRT Relaunches Its Book Review Section, Inviting Graduate Students, Independent Scholars, and Faculty to Contribute

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CFP: Religion, Politics, and Cognitive Warfare

This call for papers invites work on religion, politics, and cognitive warfare, exploring how belief, media, conspiracy, identity, and power shape struggles over reality, interpretation, and life in an age of disinformation, polarization, and contested truth. Essays may be theoretical, historical, or contemporary.

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CFP: Religion, Politics, and Cognitive Warfare | The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory | JCRT

Call for proposals on religion, politics, and cognitive warfare, exploring conspiracy, interpretation, AI, and struggles over truth and reality today.

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Catastrophic Christianity Is Now Available | Adam DJ Brett

This book reflects on Christianity in a time of catastrophe: how theological language can normalize crisis, obscure harm, or help communities reckon honestly

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CFP: Religion, Politics, and Cognitive Warfare | The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory | JCRT

Call for proposals on religion, politics, and cognitive warfare, exploring conspiracy, interpretation, AI, and struggles over truth and reality today.

jcrt.org

CFP: Religion, Politics, and Cognitive Warfare | The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory | JCRT

Call for proposals on religion, politics, and cognitive warfare, exploring conspiracy, interpretation, AI, and struggles over truth and reality today.

jcrt.org

The Chosen People at Grouse Mountain | The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory | JCRT

Felese challenges conquest-based land values and shows Indigenous relational worldviews offer life-affirming alternatives to extraction and alienation

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Christian Control of Women and Mother Earth: The Doctrine of Discovery and the Doctrine of Male Domination | The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory | JCRT

Wagner links church patriarchy and the Doctrine of Discovery to colonial violence, calling for Indigenous rematriation to restore women and the Earth.

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My Decades-long Inquiry Into the Doctrine of Christian Discovery and Domination | The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory | JCRT

Steven Newcomb reflects on decades studying Christian Discovery, showing how law and language normalized domination over Native nations for centuries.

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The Doctrine of Christian Discovery and Domination: How It Has Been Used by United States Courts to Deny Treaty Rights & Dismiss the Haudenosaunee Land Rights Cases | The Journal for Cultural and Reli...

Joseph J. Heath shows how U.S. courts use Christian Discovery to deny Haudenosaunee treaty and land rights, and calls for its repudiation in U.S. law.

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Right & Respectful Relations: A Memoir of the Road to the Historic Yakama Nation Amicus Brief Challenging ‘Christian Discovery’ in Washington State V. Cougar Den | The Journal for Cultural and Religio...

Jode Goudy recounts how the Yakama Nation built a historic amicus brief, connecting treaty rights, sovereignty, and opposition to Christian Discovery.

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Federal Anti-indian Law: Why a Challenge to “Christian Discovery” Creates a Metaphysical Crisis for the US | The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory | JCRT

Peter d'Errico argues that U.S. anti-Indian law rests on Christian Discovery, and that challenging it exposes a metaphysical crisis in U.S. law today.

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Challenging the Justifications of Domination through Law: Indigenous Resistance and the Undoing of Christian Empire | The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory | JCRT

The following issue has resulted from a conference in the winter of 2023. The conference was sponsored by The Henry Luce Foundation, Syracuse University Departments of Religion and Biology, Indigenou...

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Using the Doctrine of Discovery to Increase Shared Language and Conceptual Frameworks Between Black and Indigenous Feminist Organizing | The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory | JCRT

Nahar argues Doctrine of Discovery can build shared language between Black and Indigenous feminisms, strengthening solidarity against settler colonial power.

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A Preface to Challenging the Justifications of Domination Through Religion: “We Were Planting Corn, and They Were Planting Crosses” | The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory | JCRT

Preface to a special issue examining Christian Discovery’s role in white supremacy, law, and education, with decolonial paths grounded in Indigenous justice.

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Conclusion: Dismantling the Doctrine of Christian Discovery Cultivating Right Relations | The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory | JCRT

The conclusion calls for decolonization beyond legal reform, centering Indigenous law, land return, and right relations to resist Christian Discovery.

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Conclusion: Dismantling the Doctrine of Christian Discovery Cultivating Right Relations | The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory | JCRT

The conclusion calls for decolonization beyond legal reform, centering Indigenous law, land return, and right relations to resist Christian Discovery.

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An Appeal to the American People—Overturning “Federal Indian Law” | The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory | JCRT

Steven J. Schwartzberg urges Americans to overturn Federal Indian Law by confronting the colonial assumptions that still shape U.S. jurisprudence now.

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An Intergenerational and Perpetual Imperium of Domination and Subjugation of Indigenous Peoples: The Doctrine of Christian Discovery and Royal Supremacy | The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory...

Phillip Rodgers-Falk argues that native title and colonial sovereignty preserve Indigenous subordination through terra nullius and racial hierarchies.

jcrt.org

My Decades-long Inquiry Into the Doctrine of Christian Discovery and Domination | The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory | JCRT

Steven Newcomb reflects on decades studying Christian Discovery, showing how law and language normalized domination over Native nations for centuries.

jcrt.org

Using the Doctrine of Discovery to Increase Shared Language and Conceptual Frameworks Between Black and Indigenous Feminist Organizing | The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory | JCRT

Nahar argues Doctrine of Discovery can build shared language between Black and Indigenous feminisms, strengthening solidarity against settler colonial power.

jcrt.org

The Medieval Origins of Religious White Supremacy: English Imperialism, Crusade Defeats, and the Doctrine of Discovery | The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory | JCRT

Callan traces how medieval English myths, crusade defeat, and Irish colonization shaped Christian white supremacy and fed the global Doctrine of Discovery.

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The Chosen People at Grouse Mountain | The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory | JCRT

Felese challenges conquest-based land values and shows Indigenous relational worldviews offer life-affirming alternatives to extraction and alienation

jcrt.org

“Engineering Marvel”: Towards Resisting the Affective Politics of Erie Canal Heritage | The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory | JCRT

Nagle critiques Erie Canal heritage marketing, showing how engineered marvel obscures Haudenosaunee dispossession and calls settlers to affective resistance.

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Deconstructing the Erie Canal: Three Lessons for its Next Century | The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory | JCRT

In this bicentennial reflection on the Erie Canal, Renee Barry examines how celebratory public histories mask the canal's foundation in settler colonial violence on unceded Haudenosaunee land. Drawing...

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Deconstructing the Erie Canal: Three Lessons for its Next Century | The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory | JCRT

In this bicentennial reflection on the Erie Canal, Renee Barry examines how celebratory public histories mask the canal's foundation in settler colonial violence on unceded Haudenosaunee land. Drawing...

jcrt.org