Roland Boer
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 290404 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Roland Boer |
| NOMBRES | Roland |
| APELLIDO | Boer |
| FIRMA | BOER R |
| AFILIACIONES | Renmin University of China |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8355-2737 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 101 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 49 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 100 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 1 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1999 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 3 |
Uma nova formação socioeconômica
Este artigo busca fornecer uma estrutura filosófica mais abrangente para o modelo de “nova economia do projetamento” na China. Desenvolvida por uma equipe de pesquisa composta de economistas políticos e cientistas so- ciais, a “nova economia do projetamento” oferece uma estrutura teórica ino- vadora para interpretar a realidade da China. No entanto, é necessária uma análise filosófica mais extensa do que está em jogo. Nesse sentido, o presente ar…
"Religion" in a time of qualitative change
This is the text of a keynote speech, delivered at the Critical Research on Religion Conference, June 7-10, 2024, in Hong Kong, China
The Chinese Reception of Western Marxism
Ignacio Rangel
Ignacio Rangel stands out as the most creative and original Brazilian economist of the 20th century. He is a Marxist known for challenging the two dominant schools of thought in Brazil and Latin America—neoclassical and structuralist. His work is regaining relevance as the political economy he developed offers relevant answers to contemporary Brazilian challenges. Moreover, one of his most significant works, "Elements of Projectment Economy," has…
Friedrich Engels and the Foundations of Socialist Governance
China’s Whole Process People’s Democracy
Democracy and a “Socialist State”
The People’s Will
Marx on the State, Proletarian Dictatorship and Commune
Governing the Country According to Law
The Soviet Union as a Multi-national and Anti-colonial State
Party Building
The “Korean Style” of Socialist Governance in the DPRK
Conclusion
Lenin, Before and After October
Socialism in Power
This book examines the historical development—in practice and theory—of governance in socialist systems and deploys analysis by Marxist scholars
The End of Western Marxism? On the Unravelling of an Ideological Structure
A Truncated Marxism
Or Concrete Utopia? Concerning the Ideal Society in Chinese Philosophy and Culture
In seeking an appropriate approach to the ideal society in Chinese thought, the present study comprises two main parts. The first part deals with a debate in Chinese philosophy concerning the possibility of an inner or immanent transcendence as a way of defining Chinese culture. As this debate unfolded, it became clear that Chinese philosophers-especially on the mainland-do not regard the transcendent-immanent distinction as applicable to Chinese…
Socialism in Power
Sovereignty
The Concrete Conditions of Human Rights
Based on the principle that universals are valid if they are concrete universals, this article provides a comparison between Western liberal and Chinese Marxist approaches to human rights. It does so in three steps. First is the analysis of the foundations, or roots, of the Western liberal emphasis on an individual’s mastery over a “right” understood in terms of private property, and the Marxist tradition’s emphasis on anti-hegemonic sovereignty …
Socialism, Communism, and Concrete Marxism
This dialogue begins with the question of “concrete Marxism,” which is at the foundations of “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.” The concrete is analysed in terms of Marx’s dialectic between freedom and necessity, as also in Marx’s early work on Epicurean materialism and in Engels’s “Dialectics of Nature” and “Anti-Dühring.” We include a discussion of Hegel’s dialectic between the actual and the rational. Subsequently, we move to the relati…
Motion, Matter and Dialectics
There is an underlying continuity between Marx's doctoral thesis and Engels’ Dialectics of Nature . Although the two works are far apart in terms of time, style of writing, and specific topics, an exegesis of the core arguments reveals similar underlying interests: a focus on the materiality of motion; an identification of repulsion (and attraction) as the main dialectical feature of motion; and the philosophical implications of this dialectical …
Friedrich Engels and the Foundations of Socialist Governance
Revolution in the Event
This article undertakes a dual task. The first is to argue that the various positions of major Marxist thinkers on revolution may be gathered under the common framework of kairós, understood as a resolutely temporal term relating to the critical time, the opportune moment that appears unexpectedly and must be seized. The second task is to question the nature of kairós in terms of its biblical, class and economic residues. An investigation of the …
How can mainstream approaches become more critical
Not Some Other -ism”—On Some Western Marxist Misrepresentations of Chinese Socialism
This study tackles four Western Marxist misrepresentations of socialism with Chinese characteristics, particularly as it has developed with the reform and opening-up. Each of these misrepresentations sets in opposition the economy and the state, with the former being seen as “capitalist” (in some form) and the latter as variously “authoritarian,” “bureaucratic” or simply as “interventionist.” In other words, “Chinese characteristics” designates t…
Can a religious approach be critical
Opium, Idols and Revolution
This article is a critical survey and reappraisal of Marx and Engels's work on religion
Twenty-five Years of Marxist Biblical Criticism
In the context of a renewed interest in Marxism outside biblical studies, this article surveys and critiques the background and current status of a similar renewal in biblical studies. It begins with a consideration of the background of current studies in liberation, materialist and political theologies, and moves on to note the division between literary and social scientific uses of Marxist theories. While those who used Marxist literary methods…
Socialism and the Market
This study reassesses a body of research that has been somewhat neglected: Eastern European market socialism of the 1960s-1980s. It does so with the objective of recovering key issues and also identifying problems that need to be addressed. Thus, the study begins with an overview of the practices of market socialism, which was pursued to varying degrees from the 1960s. While some (USSR, East Germany and Czechoslovakia) turned back to centrally pl…
Marx’s Ambivalence
For Marx, what happens to the state under socialism in power, after a communist revolution? This study requires a strict self-discipline: to avoid reading later positions back into Marx’s own positions. The material is organised in sections. The first concerns Marx’s observations on hitherto existing forms of the state, especially absolutist, bourgeois and imperialist forms (directly experienced in Prussia and England). The second concerns his pr…
Kapitalfetisch
The importance of the idea of fetishism in Marx's work hardly needs to be argued, especially in light of the famous passage in Capital concerning commodities. However, the extent of Marx's engagement with fetishism has rarely been explored in full. In order to re-examine this question, the paper is divided into two parts. The first sets Marx's discussion in Capital within the context of his lifelong interest in fetishism, from his earliest encoun…
That Hideous Pagan Idol
The importance of the idea of fetishism in Marx's work hardly needs to be argued, especially in light of the famous passage in Capital concerning commodities. However, the extent of Marx's engagement with fetishism has rarely been explored in full, nor has its complex relationship with the religious idea of idolatry. In order to explore both issues, this article is divided into two parts. The first traces Marx's initial encounter with the idea in…
Women First? On the Legacy of 'Primitive Communism
One of the most important contributions to the study of the Hebrew Bible in the last 25 years is the argument for a mode of production unique to early Israel. Variously called the communitarian (Norman Gottwald), household (Carol Meyers), domestic (David Jobling and Ronald Simkins), or familial (Gail Yee), such a mode of production urges a firm basis in the study of political economics or Marxism. However, another feature of these arguments (apar…
Or Concrete Utopia? Concerning the Ideal Society in Chinese Philosophy and Culture
In seeking an appropriate approach to the ideal society in Chinese thought, the present study comprises two main parts. The first part deals with a debate in Chinese philosophy concerning the possibility of an inner or immanent transcendence as a way of defining Chinese culture. As this debate unfolded, it became clear that Chinese philosophers-especially on the mainland-do not regard the transcendent-immanent distinction as applicable to Chinese…
Concerning the “Warm Stream” within Marxism
Marxism is well known for its two components: a “cold stream” which concerns objective scientific analysis; and a “warm stream” that concerns enthusiasm and hope and leads to commitment to Marxism as a cause. Ideally, they engage dialectically with one another. They are distinct, yet they necessarily interact to produce the richness of Marxism. My focus is primarily the warm stream, which continually reappears when the “cold stream” dominates. Wi…
Marxism, Religion and the Taiping Revolution
This study offers a specific interpretation of the Taiping Revolution in China in the mid-nineteenth century. It was not only the largest revolutionary movement in the world at the time, but also one that was inspired by Christianity. Indeed, it marks the moment when the revolutionary religious tradition arrived in China. My account of the revolution stresses the role of the Bible, its radical reinterpretation by the Taiping revolutionaries, and …
Against Culturism
This article argues that the key to Stalin’s early theoretical work on the national question may be read as an attack on culturism – the propensity to identify an intangible ‘culture’ (often with religious factors) as the basis for collective identity. Although his criticism is directed at a number of social democratic organisations at the turn of the twentieth century, it also has pertinence for today due to the persistence of culturist assumpti…
Interpreting Socialism and Capitalism in China
We argue that the dialectic of utopia and dystopia enables an alternative, albeit controversial, way for framing debate over the tensions between socialism and capitalism in China. In doing so, we acknowledge but differ from alternative explanations: Socialism in China has simply become an empty veneer over rampant and unbridled capitalism; capitalism in China is of such a different variety that it is hardly capitalism at all; “socialism with Chi…
Lenin on Tolstoy
Lenin's criticisms of Tolstoy, spread over half a dozen articles, provide both an anticipatory insight and a blind spot. The insight is that they offer the first example of what would later be called an imaginary resolution of real social and economic conditions. The contradictions of Tolstoy's works are manifested as, on the one hand, incisive critiques of the depredations of the transition between feudalism and capitalism, and, on the other, as…
Toward Unethical Insurgency
This article is an exercise in the hermeneutics of suspicion—against ethics as propounded by some on the Left. It focuses on the deployment of ethics as a means for relating responsibly to the other, dealing initially with the problematic proposals of Terry Eagleton and Judith Butler. More promising are Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek, who question this concern with the other. I go further, exploring how the other is constructed and arguing that et…
Keeping the Faith
The importance of the early religious commitment of Friedrich Engels, who had such an ambiguous effect on world history, is often recognised but rarely analysed. This article offers a critical treatment of the formative religious experience of the young Engels. His was a (Calvinist) Reformed upbringing and the faith he inherited was taken up with a zeal and exuberance he would later transfer to communism. In the early part of the article, this ex…
Althusser's Catholic Marxism
What role do Louis Althusser's early theological essays play in his later work? Quite a lot, I argue in this article. By following through the shift in four key essays from 1946 to 1951, we can trace not only Althusser's reluctant abandonment of the Roman Catholic Church, but also the emergence of patterns of thought that would stay with him in his later, fully Marxist period. On the one hand, he would continue to universalize in a fashion he pic…
On Fables and Truths
My interest is the relationship between truth and fable in the work of Alain Badiou. More specifically, I am fascinated by two problems that Badiou's work raises in relation to fable: first, what i
The resurrection engine of Michel De Certeau
The Bowels of History, or The Perpetuation of Biblical Myth in Walter Benjamin
The Bowels of History, or The Perpetuation of Biblical Myth in Walter Benjamin Roland Boer The question thus becomes that of interpreting how "theological concepts," whether direct or indirect, function in the writings of Benjamin. —Weber In the debates over Walter Benjamin's use of theology, two common mistakes are made: first, biblical studies is subsumed under the label of theology , and subsequently, the concept of theology is brought to bear…
Women First? On the Legacy of 'Primitive Communism
One of the most important contributions to the study of the Hebrew Bible in the last 25 years is the argument for a mode of production unique to early Israel. Variously called the communitarian (Norman Gottwald), household (Carol Meyers), domestic (David Jobling and Ronald Simkins), or familial (Gail Yee), such a mode of production urges a firm basis in the study of political economics or Marxism. However, another feature of these arguments (apar…
Under the Influence? The Bible, Culture and Nick Cave
Debates on the relation between culture and the Bible are locked into two restrictive models: either the Bible is a source for subsequent appropriations, or it is the goal that one must attain through the thicket of those appropriations. In order to trouble this two-way street, I explore the words and music of Nick Cave, focusing on the way he controls interpretation of his work and where that control breaks down. At this moment Cave provides an …
Beholden to Whom? a Manifesto for Biblical Studies
On Fables and Truths
My interest is the relationship between truth and fable in the work of Alain Badiou. More specifically, I am fascinated by two problems that Badiou's work raises in relation to fable: first, what i
The antinomies of Christian Zionism
Defining Christian Zionism as conservative Christian support for the state of Israel, and an influential political force, especially in the United States, this article outlines four antinomies of such a position. Firstly, although Christian Zionism argues that it is purely theological, that it follows God?s will irrespective of any politics, and although mainstream Zionism is resolutely political, we argue that such a separation is impossible. In…
Criticism of Heaven
This volume consists of a critical commentary on the interactions between Marxism and theology in the work of the major figures of Western Marxism. It deals with the theological writings of Ernst Bloch, Walter Benjamin, Louis Althusser, Henri Lefebvre, Antonio Gramsci, Terry Eagleton, Slavoj Žižek and Theodor Adorno. In many cases their theological writings are dealt with for the first time in this book. It is surprising how much theological mate…
The Perpetual Allure of the Bible for Marxism
In light of the general lack of awareness of the long history of Western-Marxist fascination with the Bible, this article offers a synopsis of part of that history. After showing how the Bible was an important element in the work of Ernst Bloch, Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno, it the offers a critique of the current engagements with it by Alain Badiou, Slavoj Žižek, Terry Eagleton and Giorgio Agamben. The third section deals with the most sig…
Althusser's Catholic Marxism
What role do Louis Althusser's early theological essays play in his later work? Quite a lot, I argue in this article. By following through the shift in four key essays from 1946 to 1951, we can trace not only Althusser's reluctant abandonment of the Roman Catholic Church, but also the emergence of patterns of thought that would stay with him in his later, fully Marxist period. On the one hand, he would continue to universalize in a fashion he pic…
The search for redemption
Slavoj Zizek and Julia Kristeva have followed strikingly similar paths in their intellectual and political development, moving from Marxism through psychoanalysis to Christianity. This article traces the way they have distanced themselves from Marxism and taken up psychoanalysis, of either the Freudian or Lacanian variety. For Kristeva, psychoanalysis provides the therapeutic solution to individual and at times social problems, whereas for Zizek …
Criticism of Heaven
Twenty-five Years of Marxist Biblical Criticism
In the context of a renewed interest in Marxism outside biblical studies, this article surveys and critiques the background and current status of a similar renewal in biblical studies. It begins with a consideration of the background of current studies in liberation, materialist and political theologies, and moves on to note the division between literary and social scientific uses of Marxist theories. While those who used Marxist literary methods…
Manfred Oeming, Contemporary Biblical Hermeneutics
Manfred Oeming, Contemporary Biblical Hermeneutics: An Introduction. Translated by Joachim Vette. Ashgate, Aldershot, 2006, pp. x + 172, ISBN 0754656608 (pbk); 0754656594 (hbk).
A Titanic Phenomenon
Marxist contributions to biblical criticism are far more sustained and complex than many would expect. This critical survey of the state of play, with a look back at the main currents that have led to that state, deals with Marxist contributions to the reconstructions of biblical societies and the interpretation of the literature produced by those societies. It begins by outlining the major Marxist positions within current biblical criticism and …
Religion and Utopia in Fredric Jameson
Focusing on the interplay of religion and Utopia in Fredric Jameson's recent Archaeologies of the Future, I identify a tension: on the one hand, the content of religion has been superseded (although not its forms), yet, on the other, Jameson still wishes to make use of a hermeneutics of suspicion and recovery in which even the most retrograde material may be recuperated—religion included. So we find a clash underway in this work. Sometimes Jameso…
The History of Western Philosophy of Religion
An international team of over 100 leading scholars has been brought together to provide authoritative exposition of how history s most important philosophical thinkers from antiquity to the present day- have sought to analyse the concepts and tenets central to Western religious belief, especially Christianity. Volume 4 comprises an introduction, presenting an overview of Nineteenth-Century philosophy of religion, and a series of essays on Ninetee…
John Carroll, The Existential Jesus.
John Carroll, The Existential Jesus. Scribe, Melbourne, 2007, pp. 274, ISBN 9781921215179.
'God Doesn't Care'
Defining Christian Zionism as theological support for Israel as a Zionist state, this article analyses four contradictions in such a theology. Firstly, although Christian Zionism insists it is purely theological, not political, this separation is impossible. Secondly, mainstream Zionist use of Christian Zionism to influence US foreign policy is misguided, since Christian Zionists wish to convert or annihilate all Jews. Thirdly, Christian Zionism …
Criticism of Religion
Criticism of Religion offers a spirited critical commentary on the engagements with religion and theology by a range of leading Marxist philosophers and critics: Lucien Goldmann, Fredric Jameson, Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Kautsky, Julia Kristeva, Alain Badiou, Giorgio Agamben, Georg Lukács, and Raymond Williams. Apart from offering sustained critique, the aim is to gather key insights from these critics in order to develop a comprehensive theory of re…
The Best of Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality
Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality is an online, scholarly, peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal. JMMS seeks to be as inclusive as possible in its area of inquiry. Papers address the full spectrum of masculinities and sexualities, particularly those which are seldom heard. Similarly, JMMS addresses not only monotheistic religions and spiritualities but also Eastern, indigenous, new religious movements and other spiritualities whic…
Carolyn J. Sharp, Irony and Meaning in the Hebrew Bible.
Carolyn J. Sharp, Irony and Meaning in the Hebrew Bible. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009, pp. xiv + 357, ISBN 978-0-253-35244-6.
Dungog
This article makes use of Henri Lefebvre's highly influential threefold distinction of space to interpret the spatial dynamics of the Uniting (formerly Methodist) church of Dungog in the Hunter Valley foothills. Lefebvre ditsinguished between spatial practice (perceived space), representations of space (overtly conceived space) and spaces of representation (covertly lived space). The study proceeds to analyse the journey to and arrival in Dungog …
The Leading Article in No. 179 of the Kölnische Zeitung
This article offers a critical exegesis of an early and neglected text by Marx called “The Leading Article in No. 179 of the Kölnische Zeitung” (from 1842). It is of interest since it offers one of Marx’s most sustained engagements with theology, especially in the context of the dominant theological mode of public debate in Germany at the time, a context which is outlined briefly. Here we find Marx responding to that debate and seeking to extract…
God, Pain and Love in the Music of Nick Cave
Nick Cave has asserted that all his songs are love songs. Rather than follow his own guidelines for interpreting his work in terms of biblical influences from the Song of Solomon and the Psalms, I suggest a fourfold schema. It operates in terms of the presence and absence of both God and pain. There are very few of the secular soppy songs (no pain, no God) that are standard fare for much pop music and the ones Cave does offer are not very good. A…
Political science (70 obras) · Law (68 obras) · Philosophy (61 obras) · Sociology (61 obras) · Politics (59 obras) · Epistemology (36 obras) · Art (30 obras) · Political Economy and Marxism (30 obras) · Law (29 obras) · Philosophy (28 obras)