Form as the Grammar of Change: Holding Together Reflection and Experience with Hegel

Join guest speaker Lexi Eikelboom for the seminar Form as the Grammar of Change: Holding Together Reflection and Experience with Hegel

Abstract: Many thinkers have relied on the concept of form to communicate some of their most complex and profound ideas about the nature of reality. But what kind of concept is form? And what kind of work do we ask this concept to do and why? This paper interrogates Hegel's use of form in the Phenomenology of Spirit and the Science of Logic to propose that we think about the concept as a grammar for mediating the relationship between reflection and experience in our attempts to think about desire and change. 

This event will take place in person and online. For the Teams link to attend, email Michael Burdett.

About the speaker:

Lexi Eikelboom is a Research Fellow in Religion and Theology at the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry, Australian Catholic University. She completed a doctorate in Theology (Modern Doctrine) at the University of Oxford in 2016, following a Master’s in Christian Ethics also from Oxford. Before coming to ACU, she taught theology and interdisciplinary humanities at the John Wesley Honors College.

Eikelboom investigates points of intersection between theological and artistic discourses in order to understand how categories of significance to the arts might expand and challenge Christian doctrine. Her first book, Rhythm: A Theological Category, brings analyses of rhythm in poetry into conversation with social theory and phenomenology in order to argue for rhythm’s theological significance as well as for a particular approach to the study of rhythm in theology. Her current research investigates the intersection of metaphysical and artistic meanings of the concept of “form” by bringing Thomas Aquinas and Hans Urs von Balthasar into conversation with art and literary criticism, particularly concerning the gender implications of how the category is constructed.   Her other research interests include collaborative work with artists to challenge assumptions about what constitutes religious or spiritual knowledge, and the ways in which religious ritual shapes embodiment at the intersection of nature and culture.