WHAT IS A GENUINE APOLOGY? WHAT COUNTS AS TRUE FORGIVENESS?
I am working on a popular book on apology tentatively titled Fake Apology: Why Most Apologies Sound Like Bullshit. I intend to follow that with a university press book on forgiveness (tentatively titled Keeping Score: Forgiveness and Recompense), the manuscript of which should be finished by the end of 2021. My concern in these books is certainly influenced by Christianity, but it is also connected to both discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community and the proliferation of ‘apologies’ from companies, political bodies, sexual harassers, and many others.
WHAT KINDS OF VIRTUES DO YOU NEED TO IMPROVISE?
I have coined the term 'improvisational virtue' as way of connecting artistic improvisation with virtue ethics and virtue epistemology. The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue was my first exploration in this area. Also see “Creatio ex improvisatione: Chétien on the Call” in Music and Transcendence (2014); “In the Beginning, There Was Improvisation” in The Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies (2016); and “Improvisation” in The Oxford Handbook of Western Music and Philosophy (forthcoming 2020). My goal is to develop a dialogue between artists, sociologists, and virtue theorists.
WHAT IS LITURGY AND HOW DOES IT RELATE TO RELIGION?
In Liturgy as a Way of Life, I show that Christianity is a way of life rather than a set of beliefs. “The Primacy of Liturgy in Christianity,” in Religious Studies (forthcoming 2020) takes this further. My work on liturgy had led me to see the category 'religion' as fundamentally framed by Christianity. So what is ‘religion’? See “Where is the Philosophical/ Theological Rubicon? Toward a Radical Rethinking of “Religion’” in The Theological Turn in Phenomenology (forthcoming 2020) and “Is There Such a Thing as Religious Experience? Eine Rückfrage nach dem Ursprung der Spiritualität,” in Open Theology, (forthcoming 2020).
Bruce Ellis Benson is Senior Research Fellow at the University of St Andrews and Professorial Fellow at the University of Vienna. Over the years, he has taught and engaged in research at Loyola Marymount University, Wheaton College (IL), the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, and Union Theological Seminary (NYC).
Dr Benson is the author or editor of thirteen books. He has published over 100 book chapters, articles, and reviews.
He serves as the Executive Director of the Society for Continental Philosophy and Theology and Philosophy of Religion editor for Syndicate Journal.