Ekklesia of the Dead 

This moderated panel celebrates and explores the way in which Jennifer Scheper Hughes, Paul Christopher Johnson, Carlota McAllister, and Valentina Napolitano are pushing Catholic Studies in the Americas in new directions. Pointing to the limitations of religious politics configured solely within a “Church/State” frame, their recent publications shift scholarly attention to the way that theologies of incarnation inform "churchstateness" in Latin America. The panel will generate some light and maybe a little heat about what is at stake in the emergent concepts of "Ekklesia" and "theopolitics" and what it means to configure Catholicism as an ekklesia founded upon death. The session will be followed by the business meeting of the Catholic Studies Unit.