Thesis advisor: David S. Vanderhooft / This study defines and explores the theme of decreation, or the unmaking of all creation by Yahweh or one of his agents in response to human wrongdoing, as it appears in examples of Israel's prophetic literature. In the books of Amos, Hosea, Zephaniah, and Jeremiah--which when taken together represent prophetic traditions in both the northern and southern kingdoms and range from the eighth to the sixth centuries B.C.E.--decreation is described as a reversal of creation through desiccation, flood, desolation, darkening, quaking, melting, and an annulment of the cult. The specific events that comprise decreation differ from prophet to prophet, although between texts there appears an overlap in the language and imagery used to depict the effects of Yahweh's unmaking. The reasons given for the phenomenon also vary from prophet to prophet, as the theme is recast to convey specific indictments against Israel and Judah. Some prophets identify particular crimes as the direct cause of decreation, including broken covenant provisions and the worship of foreign deities, while others speak more generally of Israel's guilt. These texts share the idea that the entire cosmos can be unmade as a result of human wrongdoing. Israel can act in ways so contrary to Yahweh's intentions for creation, in other words, that the entire system of created order is put in jeopardy and the assurances given at the moment of creation are threatened. In some instances in the prophetic literature decreation has already begun, though in others it remains a looming threat. In all cases, the examined prophets warn, decreation is a complete dismantling of created order. Given this, it is not a surprise that many prophetic depictions of decreation reflect traditions that also appear in biblical creation accounts. In particular, the descriptions of precreation found in the Priestly writer's and the Yahwist's creation narratives resonate in many prophetic portrayals of a return to the state of things before Yahweh fashioned the heavens and the earth. This and other correlations between prophetic decreation texts and the Priestly and Yahwist creation accounts raise questions in the study regarding the dating of the Pentateuchal sources. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

The concept of compassion has recently held a controversial role in political thought. Critics have tied it with the condescension and latent self-interest of pity, while proponents have asserted it as the ethical posture from which to approach the suffering of others. This thesis looks at the role of compassion in the political sphere, arguing that political compassion involves a decentring of oneself as the primary subject of political action, looking instead to forego one’s own desire and to replace it with the desire of another. It pays particular attention to the thought of Hannah Arendt, who excludes this self-sacrificing compassion from the political sphere, due to the importance of speech to political action, and in turn, the importance of muteness to compassion. To Arendt, political speech intends to performatively bring one’s uniqueness into the world, whereas compassion performatively denies this subjectivity and is fundamentally unpolitical. She asserts that not only do public displays of compassion destroy their very value, but moreover, that a focus of compassion and suffering in the political sphere overshadows the need for cool, sober discourse between equals. I argue that, even in accepting Arendt’s definition of the political, there is space for compassion as a political labour. While Arendt asserts the need for speech and action in the political sphere, she conflates the free will involved in the plurality and uniqueness of the content of speech with the uniform, natural will to speak. Her articulations of the political realm, which require one to make oneself heard among equals, invoke at that same moment an immediate need for the labour of others foregoing their own desire to speak and act, to instead passively listen. Instead of being a realm exclusively to manifest one’s will, the political instead requires a reciprocity of desire, and its abnegation. / Graduate / 0615 / 0422 / 0681 / charlebois@u.northwestern.edu

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the adherence to absolute truth and moraluniversalism is compatible with democracy. The starting point is that there is absolute truthand absolute values.My thesis is that democracy in the form of universal suffrage is not necessarily in the wayof truth, but rather party politics and representative democracy. Abolishing the parties may besufficient to overcome both truth relativism and moral relativism, and thus provide analternative to abolishing universal suffrage. I suggest the problem lies in party politics, andthe way in which political talks are conducted, rather than in the right to vote.The investigation shows that democracy only have instrumental value. It shall be judgedbased on how well it promotes absolute truth and absolute values. Furthermore, representativedemocracy does not promote absolute truth and absolute values. One alternative isepistocracy. Another option is to abolish the parties, preserve universal suffrage, and createconditions for a new form of political dialogue. The conclusion is that the latter option is bestfor promoting the absolute truth.

Egaré dans l’histoire, dans un devenir horizontal qui le condamne à s’autodétruire pour s’affirmer, l’homme de Cioran s’ouvre par moments à un devenir vertical, soit en s’élevant à travers l’extase qui le transfigure, soit en tombant à travers l’ennui qui le défigure. En envisageant la pensée de Cioran comme une « course thérapeutique en sens cosmique » ou comme une errance infinie issue d’une « théologie sentimentale où l’absolu se construit avec les éléments du désir », cette thèse, consacrée à la fois à l’œuvre française et à l’œuvre roumaine, s’attache à l’évolution de l’auteur de l’une à l’autre tout en dénonçant le mythe de la césure entre les deux. En posant le nihilisme à la fois comme un poison et comme un remède, comme l’horizon d’une fin ou d’un nouveau commencement, l’étude se propose d’analyser les processus et les expériences à travers lesquels le nihilisme est vaincu par lui-même. Le diagnostic du « héros de la rétractation » est interprété à partir de ses tentations et de ses inconséquences ; son exploration des impasses, son évasion dans le virtuel, ses hésitations entre une carrière métaphysique et un rôle historique, sa lutte avec le temps et ses expériences extatiques, sont analysées à partir d’une double tentation d’un même passage : « du néant vers le monde » et « du monde vers le néant ». / Going astray in History, in a horizontal becoming which condemns him to self-destruct to assert himself, Cioran’s man opens at times to a vertical becoming either in rising through the ecstasy that transfigures, either by falling through boredom which disfigures. Considering Cioran’s thought as a « therapeutic run in a cosmic sense » or as an endless wandering stemming from « a sentimental theology, in which the Absolute is built with the elements of desire », this study, devoted both to the French and Romanian works, focuses on the evolution of the author from one to the other by denouncing the myth of the caesura between the two works. Assuming both nihilism as a poison and as a remedy, as the horizon of an end or of a new beginning, the study aims to analyse the processes and experiences through which nihilism is defeated by itself. The diagnosis of the « hero of the withdrawal » is interpreted from his temptations and his inconsistencies ; his exploration of the impasses, his escape into the virtual, his hesitation between a metaphysical career and a historic role, his struggle with time and ecstatic experiences, are analyzed from a double temptation of a same passage : « from nothingness to the world » and « from the world towards nothingness ».

This paper aims to explore how religious and spiritual experiences are conveyed in Karin Boye's novel Kris (English translation: Crisis). I study these experiences in the novel by using the French philosopher and mystic Simone Weil's theories of affliction and decreation. The study seeks answers to the following questions: which experiences in the novel are presented as Malin's spiritual experiences? How does Boye portray these spiritual experiences? What can we learn about Malin's spiritual experiences through Weil's theories of affliction and decreation? Affliction is a word that Weil uses to describe a specific suffering. Decreation is a term connected to Weil's idea that the only freedom humans are allowed is to give their consent to God, and give up their created self to become an uncreated self. The result of my analysis is not that Weil's concepts fit perfectly with what happens to Malin in the novel. But her philosophy proves to be useful when it comes to analyzing how Malin must suffer to learn how to uncreate herself, to be able to grow and develop a new self. This happens when she starts questioning the hierarchies that exist in her own family, within the education system, how and what the church teaches and preaches. In the middle of this crisis, she realizes that she is in love with Siv, a woman who she studies with. This love comes with more suffering, but also with a new spirituality that is created through love and light. In her new spirituality she can see things more clearly and it contains more love and light, compared to her earlier spirituality. This love and light are also connected to Weil's ideas in my paper.