Synopses & Reviews
What can theology offer in the context of neoliberalism, globalization, growing inequality, and an ever more ecologically precarious planet that disproportionately affects the poor? This book, by one of the country's best-known Latino theologians, explores possibilities for liberation from the forces that would impose certain forms of knowledge on our social world to manipulate our experience of identity, power, and justice.
Beautifully written in a refreshingly direct and accessible prose, Maduro's book is nevertheless built upon subtly articulated critiques and insights. But to write a conventional academic tractatus would have run counter to Maduro's project, which is built on his argument that ignorance is masked in the language of expertise, while true knowledge is dismissed because it is sometimes articulated in pedestrian language by those who produce it through the praxis of solidarity and struggle for social justice.
With a generosity and receptivity to his readers reminiscent of letters between old friends, and with the pointed but questioning wisdom of a teller of parables, Maduro has woven together a twenty-first-century reply to Marx's "Theses on Feuerbach." Neither conventional monograph nor memoir, neither a theological nor a political tract, but with elements of all of these, Maps for a Fiesta arrives as Maduro's philosophical and theological testament one that celebrates the knowledge-work and justice-making of the poor.
What Maduro offers here is a profound meditation on the relationship between knowledge and justice that could be read as a manifesto against the putatively unknowable world that capitalist chaos has made, in favor of a world that is known by the measure of its collective justice. His fiesta grants us the joy that nourishes us in our struggles, just as knowledge gives us the tools to build a more just society. What Maduro offers is nothing less than an epistemology of liberation.
Review
"In a word, 'Maps for a Fiesta' is perennial and relevant." -Andrew Weigert, University of Notre Dame
Synopsis
Maps for a Fiesta reprises foundational issues for identity, power, and justice in the context of what humans take as the known world, especially the social world, and what others impose on them as knowledge of that world in order to serve the interests of a dominating minority over the life chances of the majority. This issue is perennial and must be reprised in each generation or era. Maduro re-addresses these themes contextualized in the neoliberal globalizing and unequal world.
About the Author
Otto Maduro, a Latino philosopher and sociologist of religion (Venezuela 1945 New Jersey 2013) was a world-traveling lecturer, a prolific author, and a polyglot teacher. His life's work includes more than one hundred articles published in a dozen languages on five continents, and five books in five languages. Involved in Latin American theology since its inception, Maduro was the first-ever Hispanic president of the American Academy of Religion (2012) and was associate editor of the
Journal of World Christianity, Cristianismo y Sociedad, Concilium, SIC, Liaisons Internationales, Pasos, Maiêutica, and the Journal of Hispanic/Latino Theology. He was also on the editorial board of Social Compass,
Journal of the American Academy of Religion, and
Journal of Contemporary Religion.
Eduardo Mendieta is Professor of Philosophy at Stony Brook University.
Table of Contents
FOREWORD TO THE 1ST ENGLISH EDITION
INTRODUCTION
FIESTA, SORROW AND KNOWLEDGE
A CURSORY AUTOBIOGRAPHY TO BEGIN WITH
WITH LIBERATION THEOLOGIES
HOW DID I GET INTERESTED IN THIS KNOWLEDGE THING?
AND WHOEVER COULD BE BOTHERED BY THIS STUFF?
A SHORTAGE OF SUITABLE READING MATERIALS
WHAT, AFTER ALL, DO WE MEAN HERE BY "KNOWLEDGE"?
SOME KEY CLARIFICATIONS
1 - DOES EXPERIENCE SHAPE OUR KNOWLEDGE?
SOME DIMENSIONS OF THIS QUESTION
· Life's Formative Experiences
· Life's Joys and Difficulties
· Loving Acceptance
· Social Norms
· What is "Known and Accepted"
· Certainties
· Power
· Frustrations
· Contradictions and Inconsistencies
A BASIC SYNTHESIS OF THE DISCUSSION
2 - CALMLY REFLECTING ON OUR KNOWLEDGE
SOME DIMENSIONS OF THIS QUESTION
· Why Make Life More Complicated than it Already Is?
· Why Reflect Deeply on Our Reality?
· Examining the Place from Which We Know
· Studying the History of What We Want to Know
· Contrasting the Familiar with the Different
· Walking A Mile in Somebody Else's Shoes
· Carefully Reviewing Our Convictions and Positions
A BASIC SYNTHESIS OF THE DISCUSSION
3 - OPPRESSION, LIBERATION, AND KNOWLEDGE
SOME DIMENSIONS OF THIS QUESTION
· Static Visions and Power Dynamics
· Need and Limits of Theories of Oppression
· Who is Responsible for Our Burdens?
· Isn't Knowledge for Intellectuals Only?
· Practical Context and Theoretical Knowledge
· Expanding Our Criteria for Discerning Truth
A BASIC SYNTHESIS OF THE DISCUSSION
4 - HOW DO WE EXPRESS AND SHARE KNOWLEDGE
SOME DIMENSIONS OF THIS QUESTION
· Language as an Instrument for World-Construction
· Domination and Language Control
· Communicating in Silence
· For a Creative Re-appropriation of Language
· Marginalization, Liberation, and Language
· Common-Folk