Roland Theodore Boer (born 1961 [1] ) is an Australian theologian and scholar of Marxism. [2] He was awarded the Deutscher Memorial Prize in 2014.
Boer obtained a bachelor's degree in divinity from the University of Sydney. [3] He was a professor at University of Newcastle (Australia). [3] In 2004, he founded the peer-reviewed academic journal The Bible and Critical Theory. [4]
In 2018, he was described by Xinhua as one of the world's top experts on Marxism. [5] He teaches at the Dalian University of Technology's School of Marxism. [6]
He runs the blog Stalin's Moustache. [3]
Political Myth: On the Use and Abuse of Biblical Themes was released in 2009. It examines the political narratives that emerge from the Hebrew Bible on the political right and provides a framework to critique those narratives from the political left. [7]
The Sacred Economy of Ancient Israel, released in 2015, examines the intersection of economics and religion in ancient Israel through the lens of Marxist critical theory. [8]
The Criticism of Heaven and Earth is a series of books which explores the intersection of Marxism and religion. The fifth book in the series, In the Vale of Tears: On Marxism and Theology V, was released in 2012. In 2014 it was awarded the Deutscher Memorial Prize. [3]
In Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: A Guide for Foreigners, released in 2021, Boer describes Gordon H. Chang's The Coming Collapse of China (2001) as an example of the "China doomer" approach to historical nihilism. [9] Other examples cited by Boer include anti-communist tropes and atrocity propaganda, as well as "betrayal" narratives in which Deng Xiaoping is cast as a "traitor" who supposedly undid the achievements of China's revolution and brought capitalism to China—Boer characterises these as historical nihilism. [9]
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: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of November 2024 (link)