Vulnerabilities: A Heterology of Incarnation in Vulnerability Discourse

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Hildegund Keul
• Subject Area: Roman Catholic Theology
• Term: since 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 389249041

Main Aim: A Viable Bridge to Resilience DiscourseThe main objective of this follow-up project is to make the findings regarding vulnerability, vulnerance, and self-injury that were gained in religious theory and incarnation theology, which was the aim of my research in the last three years, fruitful for resilience discourse. This will make a crucial contribution to sharpening the concept of resilience as a scientific analytical concept. Such sharpening goes against the dangerous – because it is susceptible to misuse – tendency to use the term resilience in a non-critical way as a ‘catchword‘. The planned project builds a long overdue viable bridge from vulnerability discourse to current resilience discourse. Here the chance is also taken to subject the findings that have been gained so far in the vulnerability project to a critical examination in this socially relevant neighbouring discourse and to elicit new discoveries from resilience discourse to vulnerability discourse.Sub-aims:1. To reinforce the bridge piers of theological research on vulnerabilityThe findings gained will be injected into the neighbouring vulnerability discourse. Here a) the voluntary risking of injury (sacrifice) as well as b) the vulnerant attitude will be researched in its significance for resilience: Can resilience also be created through vulnerance?2. Intensification of the scientific exchange with resilience researchInstead of simply being a catchword, resilience becomes an analytical concept if research does not only inquire about vulnerability and resilience but draws in vulnerance as a third category. This new perspective is introduced in resilience research.3. The analysis of ‘vulnerability, vulnerance, and reslience’ to make the terms useful for survivors of sexual and spiritual abuseVulnerability and resilience research has not been researched sufficiently with respect to sexual and spiritual misuse. Theology can contribute to this by reinforcing the resilience of survivors with regard to their increased vulnerability. This project works out the foundations of this.4. The Vulnerability Dispositif: A Theological and Interdisciplinary ReflectionThe continued development of the vulnerability dispositif, which experienced an upswing with the Corona pandemic, will be traced for its significance for the placement of theology in interdisciplinary research contexts. 5. To make George Bataille’s approach fruitful for theologyWe will examine German-speaking theologians who have been working on Bataille in recent years regarding the question of what Bataille has contributed to the thematic complex of theology and vulnerability and where theology is going beyond Bataille.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants