Browsing by Author "Smith, Kyle"

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    Asylum of the Saints: The Protestant Virtuoso Management System
    (2023-04-18) Smith, Kyle; Stroup, John
    This project examines how the souls of potential saints are constituted by Protestant ecclesial authorities to render them docile. The case studies of several highly influential Christian leaders are utilized including Martin Luther, John Wesley, St. Teresa of Avila, William Seymour, Karl Barth, Aimee McPherson, and Lonnie Frisbee. Throughout the Christian tradition radical individuals whose religious experiences are not mediated by authority exist as both a necessity for ecclesial legitimization and a problem for institutional control. This project argues that many of the technologies of the subject which were created to manage virtuoso subjects, or saints, have been retooled by capitalism, and relabeled as secular, to constituted potential virtuoso subjects into a form-of-life that is conducive to modern capitalist ends. I approach this topic by examining the conflict that arose over possession of the holy. However, unlike Rudolf Otto who approached the holy as possessing an ontological reality, this project approaches the holy primarily through the lens of an existential valuation. An existential valuation which nevertheless shapes both the soul of the valuer and the society in which the valuer exists. Within the confines of this project’s methodologies, Weberian charisma is produced by the virtuoso through their radical valuation. As such, the wars over the possession of ‘the holy’ are in fact nothing more than contentions over possession of Weberian charisma. Thus, the war of the holy is in fact a war over the soul of the virtuoso in which various factions attempt to persuade the virtuoso to abandon their aesthetic project of self-formation or to otherwise part with their charisma. This charisma is perceived as valuable by ecclesial authorities because it can be utilized to justify the hierocratic right to mold souls or, later, the pastoral nation states’ right to mold souls. Theorists such as Max Weber, Peter Brown, Grace Jantzen, Martin Riesebrodt, and of course, Michel Foucault, have examined aspects of this conflict prior to the Reformation but none of them have provided a holistic narrative regarding this conflict. Additionally, many of these theorists have chosen to focus on the role of the monastery in constituting the souls of the saints in a manner that legitimizes the hierocratic monopolization of the holy. This project, however, is predominantly concerned with how the conflict over the possession of the holy was continued after and during the Reformation. Especially as, per Weber, it is this form of Christianity that provided the form-of-life which created contemporary capitalism. Specifically, this project is interested in how the virtuoso’s soul has been managed by Protestant theologians and pastors who still seek to maintain a hierocratic monopoly on the holy and how this history impacts the souls of contemporary subjects and contemporary society.