I joined the School in September 2003 (then the Department of Religious Studies), having studied in Canada (BA - English, MTh - Theology) and Glasgow (PhD at the Centre For the Study of Literature, Theology and the Arts), and having worked at the University of Houston in the States, where I was the Carolyn Grant Fay Visiting Associate Professor in Religion and Literature. Since relocating back to Scotland, my teaching and research have continued to advance an interdisciplinary line of enquiry. My courses focus on ways in which religion conceptually and culturally manifests itself in other disciplines and modes of expression, whether through philosophy, hermeneutics, critical theory, literature, or other forms of art. As Deputy Director of Postgraduate Studies for the School of Arts and Humanities, I have a particular passion for postgraduates and their programmes. I also work closely within a consortium of eight other Scottish universities to promote, through a Doctoral Training Partnership scheme (AHRC), postgraduate funding and postgraduate experience across of all Scotland. Hannah Arendt once wrote: "What guides [my] thinking [poetically] is the conviction that although the living is subject to the ruin of time, the process of decay is at the same time a process of crystallization, that in the depth of the sea, into which sinks and is dissolved what once was alive, some things ‘suffer a sea-change' and survive in new crystallized forms and shapes that remain immune to the elements, as though they waited only for the pearl diver who one day will come down to them and bring them up into the world of the living - as ‘thought fragments', as something ‘rich and strange'...". I see higher education and pearl diving as similar vocations.
My research explores the intersection of religion with literature (and the arts), with philosophy, and with critical theory. A particular emphasis is on hermeneutics and the questions of textuality and interpretation. I am concerned with how religion necessarily crosses over into other realms of thinking and experience, and how this might be made manifest in the various textual expressions handed down by tradition or found within contemporary culture. My work therefore has been consciously interdisciplinary, as I pursue ways to envision and enact religion beyond its institutional norms, beyond even the category of religion itself. Previous work has looked at the way religion and creative expression have been forged together within the modern philosophical context laid down by Kant (Poetics of Critique, Ashgate, 2003). More recent work has looked at the way this forging was continued in post-Kantian German idealism, particularly Hegel. The latter has exposed the crucial role that the notions of nothing and negativity have played in developing our modern consciousness, particularly of or around religion and art. Two recent publications examine this role: the first, a preparatory study, constructs a history of ideas around the way the concept of One gives way in Western modernity to an ever-increasing potency of the concept of Nothing and its figurations (Auden's O: The Loss of One's Sovereignty in the Making of Nothing, SUNY, 2013); a second looks in a more focussed manner at one of the key players in this shift, the philosopher Hegel, and the creative - indeed disruptive - role negation plays in his system, and in so much of the modernity and postmodernity to follow him (Hegel and the Art of Negation, I.B. Tauris, 2013). Present work continues to explore the "speculative" implications of Hegel and negation in contemporary thought and practice, both in Western contexts and, increasingly, in a Chinese context, where the concept of Nothing has had a much richer heritage. Since 2004 I have been the Executive General Editor of Literature and Theology: An International Journal of Religion, Theory and Culture that publishes international scholars working in the fields of religion, literature, theory and culture. The Journal helps to sponsor biennial conferences around Europe and the UK, in conjunction with the International Society for Religion, Literature and Culture, of which I am Secretary. The latest conference will be in Leuven, Belgium on "Re-imagining Human" (Sept. 2014). I welcome postgraduate research proposals in the following areas: religion/theology and literature, religion/theology and the arts, religion/theology and continental philosophy (Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida, et al.), hermeneutics (Gadamer, Ricoeur, et al.), critical theory, nothing and negation, and other related areas.
Book Chapter
Creatio qua Nihil: Negation from the Generative to the Performative
Hass A (2021) Creatio qua Nihil: Negation from the Generative to the Performative. In: Dalferth IU & Kimball TW (eds.) The Meaning and Power of Negativity: Claremont Studies in the Philosophy of Religion, Conference 2017. Religion in Philosophy and Theology, 10. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/book/the-meaning-and-power-of-negativity-9783161601354?no_cache=1
Article
The Gravity of Mystical Ascent
Hass AW (2020) The Gravity of Mystical Ascent. Space and Culture, 23 (4), pp. 343-356. https://doi.org/10.1177/1206331219864274
Article
The Yes of Nietzsche and Hegel in Altizer
Hass A (2020) The Yes of Nietzsche and Hegel in Altizer. Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory, 19 (1), pp. 17-33. https://jcrt.org/archives/19.1/Hass.pdf
Website Content
Jasper A, Hass A, Saade B, Darroch F & Gao Z (2019) Religion Under Fire. The Critical Religion Association - Critical Approaches to the Study of Religion [Website content] 05.05.2019.
Book Chapter
Hass AW (2017) Mediation. In: Whistler D (ed.) The Edinburgh Critical History of Nineteenth-Century Christian Theology. The Edinburgh Critical History of Christian Theology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-the-edinburgh-critical-history-of-nineteenth-century-christian-theology-hb.html
Book Chapter
Hegel and the Negation of the Apophatic
Hass AW (2017) Hegel and the Negation of the Apophatic. In: Brown N & Simmons A (eds.) Contemporary Debates in Negative Theology and Philosophy. Palgrave Frontiers in Philosophy of Religion. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 131-161. http://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9783319658995; https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65900-8_9
Book Chapter
Translation as Trans-Literal: Radical Formations in Contemporary Chinese Art
Hass AW (2016) Translation as Trans-Literal: Radical Formations in Contemporary Chinese Art. In: Jasper D, Youzhuang G & Hai W (eds.) A Poetics of Translation: Between Chinese and English Literature. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, pp. 215-237. http://www.baylorpress.com/Book/55/466/A_Poetics_of_Translation.html
Authored Book
Hass AW (2014) Hegel and the Art of Negation. London: IB Tauris. http://www.ibtauris.com/Books/Humanities/Philosophy/History%20of%20Western%20philosophy/Western%20philosophy%20c%201600%20to%20c%201900/Hegel%20and%20the%20Art%20of%20Negation.aspx?menuitem={DFF51E2F-C0BA-4928-ACC4-415188DCDEE8}
Article
Negative Hermeneutics and 'Scriptural Reasoning'
Hass AW (2014) Negative Hermeneutics and 'Scriptural Reasoning' [否定的诠释学与经文辩读]. Journal for the Study of Christian Culture, (31), pp. 82-97. http://en.oversea.cnki.net/kcms/detail/detail.aspx?QueryID=3&CurRec=6&dbCode=CCJD&filename=JDWH201401006&dbname=CCJDLAST2
Book Chapter
Hass AW (2014) Becoming. In: Peterson D & Zbaraschuk G (eds.) Resurrecting the Death of God: The Origins, Influence, and Return of Radical Theology. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, pp. 155-172. http://www.sunypress.edu/p-5849-resurrecting-the-death-of-god.aspx
Book Chapter
Hass AW (2013) The Poetics of O (as Nothing). In: Price D & Johnson R (eds.) The Movement of Nothingness: Trust in the Emptiness of Time. Aurora, CO: The Davies Group, pp. 167-182. http://www.thedaviesgrouppublishers.com/pricenothingness.htm
Authored Book
Auden's O: The Loss of One's Sovereignty in the Making of Nothing
Hass AW (2013) Auden's O: The Loss of One's Sovereignty in the Making of Nothing. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. http://www.sunypress.edu/p-5741-audens-o.aspx
Book Chapter
Hegel Beyond the Ideal of Idealism
Hass AW (2013) Hegel Beyond the Ideal of Idealism. In: Jasper D & Wright D (eds.) Theological Reflection and the Pursuit of Ideals: Theology, Human Flourishing and Freedom. Farnham: Ashgate, pp. 131-146. http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781409452393
Article
The Theoretical Community (Or, is There a Theory in his Journal?)
Hass AW (2012) The Theoretical Community (Or, is There a Theory in his Journal?). Literature and Theology, 26 (3), pp. 289-304. https://doi.org/10.1093/litthe/frs032
Article
Artist Bound: The Enslavement of Art to the Hegelian Other
Hass AW (2011) Artist Bound: The Enslavement of Art to the Hegelian Other. Literature and Theology, 25 (4), pp. 379-392. https://doi.org/10.1093/litthe/frr046
Book Chapter
Hass AW (2011) Discipline Beyond Disciplines. In: Walton H (ed.) Literature and Theology: New Interdisciplinary Spaces. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, pp. 19-36. http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781409400110
Article
Intending Metaphors: Living and Working 'Religion and Literature'
Hass AW (2009) Intending Metaphors: Living and Working 'Religion and Literature'. Religion and Literature, 41 (2). http://religionandlit.nd.edu/issues/archives/40-1-spr-2008---44-3-aut-2012/
Article
Fitzgerald T, Hass AW, Jasper A, Darroch F, Roberts R, King R & Carette J (2007) A case of misrepresentation: James L. Cox and Steven J. Sutcliffe, "Religious studies in Scotland: A persistent tension with divinity" [Religion 36 (1) (March 2006) 1e28]: A response from Religion at Stirling. Religion, 37 (4), pp. 333-337.
Edited Book
Oxford Handbook of English Literature & Theology
Hass AW, Jasper D & Jay E (eds.) (2007) Oxford Handbook of English Literature & Theology. Oxford Handbooks in Religion and Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199271979.do; http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199544486.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199544486
Book Chapter
The Future Of English Literature And Theology
Hass AW (2007) The Future Of English Literature And Theology. In: Hass A, Jasper D & Jay E (eds.) Oxford Handbook of English Literature and Theology. Oxford Handbooks in Religion and Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 841-858. http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199271979.do; http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199544486.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199544486
Authored Book
Poetics of Critique: The Interdisciplinarity of Textuality
Hass AW (2003) Poetics of Critique: The Interdisciplinarity of Textuality. Routledge Revivals. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate. https://www.routledge.com/Poetics-of-Critique-The-Interdisciplinarity-of-Textuality/Hass/p/book/9781138709959