Dr Michael Kirwan SJ
Head of Theology
Email: m.kirwan@heythrop.ac.uk
Telephone: 020 7795 4236
Biography
My doctoral thesis, completed in 1998 at Heythrop, is entitled Friday's Children: An Examination of Theologies of Martyrdom in the Light of the Mimetic Theory of Rene Girard. It seeks to bring together Christian understandings of martyrdom and witness, both from the early Church and from contemporary situations, and shed light on these by using the 'mimetic theory' of cultural formation put forward by the French American cultural anthropologist, Rene Girard. Girard's provocative theory asserts strong interconnections between religion, culture and violence, and this highly relevant topic remains my principle academic interest. I am a member of the Colloquium on Violence and Religion, an international and interdisciplinary group dedicated to exploring the implications for both research and application of Girard's model; for documentation, see http://starwww.uibk.ac.at/.
My approach to Political Theology is shaped to a large degree by the way that both European political theology and Latin American liberation theology have had to acknowledge a new cultural context, one that is 'postmodern', 'post-Marxist', etc. What does a responsible Christian political commitment look like in such an uncertain setting? And as my first undergraduate studies were in English literature, I am also keen to explore culture and literature, rather than philosophy, as a distinctive and vital approach to theological questions. I am therefore interested in issues arising from hermeneutics (theory of interpretation), and narrative and dramatic styles of theology.
I am a regular guest lecturer at the Institute of Ecumenical Studies in Prague, and cherish a longer-term project of bringing political theology from European and Latin America into more explicit dialogue with the experience of Christians in former communist countries. I am a member of the Catholic Theological Association (GB), and have also participated in its European meetings, as well as networks of Jesuit theologians.
Current teaching
I lecture in the systematic theology and pastoral theology departments of Heythrop College, where I did most of my studies as a Jesuit.
Publications
Articles on culture and religion in The Month, passim.
1997, 'The Struggles of Perpetua: Vision, Narrative and the meaning of Martyrdom' in Browne, H.B. and Griffith-Dickinson G. (eds), Passion for the Critique: Essays in Honour of F.J. Laishley, Ecumenical Publishing House, Prague.
2000, 'Refounding and Repeating: Ways to the New' in The Way Supplement, Summer 2000
2001, 'Millennial Appetites and the Refusal of Somatocrasy' in Se.E. Porter, M.A. Hayes and D. Tombs (eds), Faith in the Millennium, Sheffield Academic Exegesis, Mohr Siebeck, Tubingen, pp. 68-83
2004, and Anthony O'Mahony (eds), World Christianity, Melisende Press, London.
2004, 'Current Theological Themes in World Christianity' in World Christianity, eds O'Mahony and Kirwan, pp. 43-62.
Forthcoming:
2004, 'Word in Sacrament' in A Catholic-Shia Encounter, ed Anthony O'Mahony, Melisende Press, London.
2004, Discovering Girard, DLT London.