HASS Inaugural Lecture - Professor Susannah Cornwall

This event is hybrid. When you reserve your spot via the Eventbrite link, please indicate how you will be attending. Seats will be allocated on a first-come, first-serve basis. Once you confirm your attendance via the below form, you will receive an Outlook calendar invite from HASS@exeter.ac.uk

• Date: 12 February 2024
• Time: 16:00 - 17:00 (followed by a drinks reception)
• Location: Streatham Campus, Queens Building, LT1

"(How) Can we Change our Worlds? Doing Theology Otherwise"
Academic theology might seem at best a luxury and at worse an unjustifiable indulgence in light of the current political and ecological crises we all face. However, theology points to the possibility for things to be otherwise, representing a refusal to accept any ideology as the last word. In this lecture, drawing on my research in constructive and queer theologies, I reflect on what principles of transformation, rather than restoration, mean for my discipline, for the academy, and for institutions more widely. I ask in whose interests is it for us to believe that there is no possible alternative to the way things currently are, and show that theology’s vocation is to turn assumptions and hierarchies on their heads.