IRCI public lecture

Rhythm: A Theological Category

The Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry is pleased to invite you to join them in celebrating the publication of Lexi Eikelboom’s work: Rhythm: A Theological Category. Oxford: (Oxford University Press, 2018).

The book: As a phenomenon that encompasses poles that are often at odds in theoretical discourse – space and time, pattern and variation, individual and collective – rhythm cuts across some of the key elements of religion: doctrine, practice, and culture. Rhythm: A Theological Category illuminates how rhythm has been used to articulate a variety of theological ideas, offering the first analysis of how thinkers appeal to rhythm when articulating their visions of the relationship between God and creation. Beginning with an orientation to how rhythm is studied in phenomena like poetry, jazz music, and language, the book uses insights from these disciplines to create a framework for evaluating philosophical and theological appeals to rhythm. It concludes by imagining what doctrines of creation, salvation, eschatology, and ecclesiology might look like if conceptualized as interventions in and responses to the rhythms of everyday life

Lexi Eikelboom D.Phil (Oxford), is a Research Fellow in the Religion and Theology program at ACU’s Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry. She takes an interdisciplinary approach to modern doctrine, using resources from the arts, phenomenology, and social theory to interrogate the categories through which theology is expressed. Prior to coming to the Australian Catholic University, Lexi taught theology and interdisciplinary humanities at the John Wesley Honors College, Indiana Wesleyan University.