![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/IMG_24592.jpg\" "\\"Winter")
<\/p>\nResonance, Receptivity and Radical Reformation<\/p>\n
By Melanie Kampen<\/em><\/p>\n On January 25 and 26, 2011, Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) welcomed Dr. Romand Coles to its annual Winter Lecture series.\u00a0 Coles is the Frances B. McAllister Endowed Chair and Director of the Program for Community, Culture, and Environment at Northern Arizona University.\u00a0 His interests intersect political theory, philosophy, theology, and political practice leading him to prepare his lectures on Resonance, Receptivity and Radical Reformation.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n CMU\u2019s annual Winter Lectures highlight the arts, sciences, humanities, and interdisciplinary studies at CMU and foster dialogue between these disciplines and the Christian faith.<\/p>\n \u201cColes is very interested in Christian thought and practice, so he is a particularly helpful dialogue partner for us,\u201d said Paul Dyck, Associate Professor of English and member of the Special Lectures Committee.<\/p>\n Coles, who brings 20 years\u2019 experience teaching political theory, holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Massachusetts.\u00a0 His recent publications include Beyond Gated Politics: Reflections for the Possibility of Democracy <\/em>(2005) and (with Stanley Hauerwas) Christianity, Democracy, and the Radical Ordinary: Conversations between a Radical Democrat and a Christian<\/em> (2007).<\/p>\n In the first of his three lectures presented on campus at CMU, Coles noted that our intra-societal encounters with difference are marked by two kinds of resonance.\u00a0 The \u201cresonance machine\u201d of mainstream politics leads us to hostility and the exercise of imperial power in order to manage conflicts of difference across political and ethical lines.\u00a0 The alternative, however, names a very different kind of power, which makes itself vulnerable to the other and thereby initiates resonant receptivity across difference.\u00a0 Where the former proliferates mimetic violence, the latter questions this as the normative response to difference and by its interrogative character, breaks open the vicious cycle with a creative and wild peace.\u00a0 It is at this point that Coles finds John Howard Yoder\u2019s work on non-violence particularly illuminating.\u00a0 Yoder suggests that Jesus\u2019 life and death were marked by the continuous temptation to take matters into his own hands and bring about a Messianic revolution once and for all.\u00a0 Not only is this evident in Jesus\u2019 encounter with the devil in the wilderness, it is more generally a constant temptation referred to by Yoder as the Zealot option.\u00a0 As we know, Jesus rejects this option, the zealous desire to get a handle on history in order to bring about a particular end. Jesus\u2019 response is rather what Coles calls a practice of \u201cwild patience\u201d: patience because it resists the urgent anxiety for control, and wild because it names the active cultivation of a different kind of posture towards violence and difference in general.<\/p>\n The second lecture explored some recent developments in neurobiology, particularly the study of mirror neurons.\u00a0 Coles illustrated the findings in the simple example of the way a smile towards another person elicits a smile in return.\u00a0 The sight of a smile resonates at the neurological level, the mirror neurons begin to fire, and a smile is provoked in return.\u00a0 This does not imply that we are somehow \u201csmiled into becoming\u201d as Coles cautions, but it does show us that we are deeply biological and corporeal creatures.\u00a0 Coles further suggests that our preoccupation with political control and management reflects our lack of resonance across difference and is a symptom of what he refers to as \u201cpolitical autism.\u201d\u00a0 Autism is marked by a lack of neuro-resonance with the emotions of others.\u00a0 Its political diagnosis then names a lack of resonance across difference in the body politic.\u00a0 Also recognizing that social practices cultivate our bodies in particular ways, Coles suggests that many of our current social customs, political frameworks, and educational institutions, cultivate practices that diminish, shut down, and deflect our capacities for receptive resonance.\u00a0 Receptive resonance as an antidote to political autism does not imply agreement across difference but the initiation of dynamic interaction and exchange.\u00a0 Furthermore, it does not name a solution to conflicts of difference; rather, it reconceives of society as an ecosystem.\u00a0 Multifarious practices of resonant receptivity name an \u201cecology of post-autistic politics and ethics.\u201d\u00a0 Practices of receptivity develop and increase our neurological and cultural capacities for receptivity and in this performative way they create \u201cliturgies of transformation.\u201d<\/p>\n Having called attention to the immanence of resonance to the socio-political fabric, Coles spurred our imaginations in the third lecture by sharing some of the practices he participates in.\u00a0 One of his criticisms of the modern university is that it is structured in such a way that thought is abstracted from the practices that engender it.\u00a0 Coles maintains that the theory-practice dualism is ultimately false and that the lines that define thought need to be redrawn.\u00a0 Students at Northern Arizona University are therefore involved in a number of community practices alongside their in-class studies.\u00a0 \u201cWhat this is not<\/em>,\u201d Coles emphasized, \u201cis the application of thought.\u201d\u00a0 Rather, all the practices of the students are understood as sites of knowledge, thought, imagination, and creativity.\u00a0 Liturgies of transformation take place in school assemblies and parent groups, church basements and community gardens.\u00a0 Coles remarked that \u201cif Obama is doing something big, we are doing little things\u2014remember, un-handling history at the cellular level.\u201d<\/p>\n Resonant receptivity and liturgies of transformation are located in an ecosystem of energy: from cellular to solar, from biological to cultural, from political to ethical.\u00a0 Engaging and receiving this energy creates an alternative \u201cresonance machine\u201d characterized by wild and patient labour.\u00a0 The practice of resonant receptivity does not seek to overcome difference merely in a non-violent way; rather, it gives and receives difference in a posture vulnerable and open to radical reformation.<\/p>\n As Mennonite listeners and readers will notice, Coles\u2019 project resonates with our Anabaptist identity in interesting ways.\u00a0 Particularly in regards to the continuous negotiations of the Christian witness to the world, Coles invites us to interrogate the social and political norms that govern the state but also those of the church.\u00a0 How do we relate to difference?\u00a0 How do we understand and engage questions of peace and violence?\u00a0 In what ways are we complicit in the dominant resonance machine?\u00a0 Where have we closed off the opportunity for receptivity?\u00a0 With whom do we resonate?\u00a0 Ultimately, these are not questions we can answer ourselves; we need the voice of others, of difference, to give an account of ourselves and the world.\u00a0 The posture of resonant receptivity assumes a certain level of ignorance which understands that my liberation is bound up with yours.\u00a0 As Lila Watson once remarked: \u201cIf you have come to help me you are wasting my time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us struggle together.\u201d<\/p>\n Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) is a Christian university offering undergraduate degrees in the arts and sciences, business, communications and media, peace and conflict resolution studies, music, music therapy, theology, and church ministries, as well as graduate degrees in Theological Studies and Christian ministry. Located in Winnipeg, Manitoba, CMU has over 1,700 students at its Shaftesbury Campus in Southwest Winnipeg, at Menno Simons College in downtown Winnipeg, and enrolled through its Outtatown discipleship program. CMU is a member of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC).<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Resonance, Receptivity and Radical Reformation By Melanie Kampen On January 25 and 26, 2011, Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) welcomed Dr. Romand Coles to its annual Winter Lecture series.\u00a0 Coles is the Frances B. McAllister Endowed Chair and Director of the Program for Community, Culture, and Environment at Northern Arizona University.\u00a0 His interests intersect political theory, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":377,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[865,71],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=717"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":889,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717\/revisions\/889"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}