Title Information
Title
"Inflamed by Daily Practices": John Cassian and Ethical Formation
Name: Personal
Name Part
Clements, Niki Kasumi
Role
Role Term: Text
creator
Origin Information
Copyright Date
2014
Physical Description
Extent
viii, 292 p.
digitalOrigin
born digital
Note
Thesis (Ph.D. -- Brown University (2014)
Name: Personal
Name Part
Lewis, Thomas
Role
Role Term: Text
Director
Name: Personal
Name Part
Harvey, Susan
Role
Role Term: Text
Reader
Name: Personal
Name Part
Cladis, Mark
Role
Role Term: Text
Reader
Name: Personal
Name Part
Bush, Stephen
Role
Role Term: Text
Reader
Name: Corporate
Name Part
Brown University. Religious Studies
Role
Role Term: Text
sponsor
Genre (aat)
theses
Abstract
"'Inflamed by Daily Practices': John Cassian and Ethical Formation" is the first inter-disciplinary treatment of the ethical program fostered by the fifth-century Christian ascetic John Cassian (c.360-c.433). An architect of Latin monasticism, Cassian is a seminal figure in the development of Christian monastic practice through the pronounced influence of his two central texts, the Institutes and the Conferences, listed as required reading in Benedict of Nursia's Rule. Despite his historical influence and a recent increase of scholarly interest in his works, Cassian remains understudied due to his view of human agency that was deemed semi-heretical at the Council of Orange in 529. Influenced by Egyptian desert asceticism, Cassian—engaging in polemics with his contemporary, Augustine of Hippo—takes a generous view of human agency that enables concrete programs for ethical transformation via manual labor, dietary regulation, scriptural meditatio, and inter-personal relations. While Michel Foucault diagnoses Cassian as inaugurating the western fixation on “interiority” and negating the body in the process, a historical-textual reading of Cassian reflects an understanding of the human person as an integrated whole, with bodily, affective, and intellective forms of awareness constituting the person together. This integrated paradigm—which sidesteps binary philosophical categories that contributed to Foucault’s reading—provides resources for constructively thinking about ethics today, emphasizing the practices, emotions, and beliefs that enable people to habituate themselves in patterns of action that constitute ethics as a way of life.
Subject
Topic
John Cassian
Subject
Topic
ethical formation
Subject
Topic
human agency
Subject
Topic
self
Subject
Topic
person
Subject (FAST) (authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/915833")
Topic
Ethics
Subject (FAST) (authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/1136568")
Topic
Subjectivity
Record Information
Record Content Source (marcorg)
RPB
Record Creation Date (encoding="iso8601")
20141006
Language
Language Term: Code (ISO639-2B)
eng
Language Term: Text
English
Identifier: DOI
10.7301/Z0ZS2TVK
Access Condition: rights statement (href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/")
In Copyright
Access Condition: restriction on access
Collection is open for research.
Type of Resource (primo)
dissertations