reflections from the guild

I attended my first AAR/SBL conference last week in Chicago. I attended these sessions:

Saturday
Mysticism Group - The Ecstasy of the End: Mystical Death across Traditions
Polis & Ecclesia - Investigations of Urban Christianity: Roman Corinth
Queer Studies in Religion Group - Queer Reorientations: Questioning Bodies and Futures
Reception for LGBTQI Scholars

Sunday
Postcolonial Studies and Biblical Studies: Postcolonial Theory in Dialogue
Bible, Theology, and Postmodernity Group - Flesh, Desire, Divinity: Celebrating the Work of Karmen MacKendrick
Vanderbilt Reception

Monday
Religion and Sexuality Group - Discipline & Hierarchy in Religious Practices of Sex
Women in the Biblical World, LGBT/Queer Hermeneutics - Bible Trouble panel

(I also had yummy Thai food with Britt on Sat, Chicago pizza with Brandy on Sunday, and Britt's homemade pizza on Monday!)

I wanted to poke my eyes out during the first two Saturday sessions, so I gave up on early Christianity and explored the queerer options. I was happy I did - so soul-filling, enriching, and inspiring. I reconnected with Kent, heard Brandy present, scoped out Virginia Burrus and Stephen Moore, met Dave Stuart (L's teacher), heard Ellen, got drunk with people I love.

I still worry about early Christianity - how am I going to learn this stuff? Is reading widely enough? Yet the queer stuff confirmed what I needed it to - that this stuff is beautiful, it is about desire, it is desirous scholarship and pedagogy. All of the respondents to Karmen MacKendrick's work expressed that point elegantly - the things we examine seduce us - and their responses demonstrated another point - scholarship at its best is seductive, in language and in concept. The "queer stuff" inspired a good paper for Dr. Armour that was due the same weekend, and I hope to incorporate (embody) it in the rest of my work.

Asher also mentioned last night that I should look at the gender studies dept. at Emory. (Well, he mentioned it as though he was suggesting it to himself, then helpfully included me in it.)

But Drew will always be my first choice, I think.

senior sem?

pedagogy + early christian lit or queer stuff
basically, the questions i've been struggling with this semester and voc'l discernment.
why and how do we teach? obligations, risks? 

clobber

Today at the Baptist university where I TA, we began with lectio divina on I Cor. 13. I recited it from memory while they soaked it up. Then I asked for their prayers for my undergrad community though I didn't go into detail. Then, a student said that every time he heard a person who was "pro-homosexuality" questioned about the Bible, they sidestepped the question. I swept through the clobber verses on homosexuality in 20 minutes. I knew all the arguments and most of the references from memory. Some of them were flipping through their Bibles to keep up. I think I sufficiently complicated things for them as I sat there in my flannel plaid shirt and clean face. Then I said, "No matter what you believe about the Bible, I ask you to think about the kind of love we just meditated on: patient, kind, keeps no record of wrongs. Think about how that influences your ethical stance and your praxis and the way you treat your neighbors."

Every time someone spoke up, they said: "I mean, I believe homosexuality is a sin, but..." before they said their thought.

It was strange. And I felt like I did my job well.

call and response and call

an overwhelming sadness of :
Can I find myself here,
can I place myself here,
within this constellation of brilliants ?
i, in my heart, feel suddenly grief,
wrath at a million little irritations and compromises,
annoyance with the weight of infractions and that
damn dimming sky

i love and hate the autumn
when it is gloryblue it's
very very blue
but when it is cloudy
it's horrid

i worry
at the fraud of it all
i cannot bear the pressure
of love, it is too much, too hard
too uncertain from within this web of
sins. sins this is what is really certain.
this: i am the greatest of sinners
but even there is pride

the child-me who was really a hag
in soft skin comes to me every winter
all the angst and tenuous grasping
take residence in my muscles now
i want to shatter her

friends, will you hold me
friends will you hold
friends will you
me

i remember fragments of the poetry
i made out of the grimmest seasons
i, i, i lifted my head and wove gold out of dust
it was the most majestic poesis
icarus, the goldenboy, charon,
odysseus and penelope,
the farmer and the dust bowl
they all come back in the winter
they all come back
i hate them those tragedies

senior seminar 1

michelson's syriaca project + foucault genealogy + how to do ethical history in a //cliche: rapidly changing world//

i think this practical aspect (the syriaca proj) would help my interests fit the parameters of sr sem.

summer plan

definitely
-develop a reading list to cover gaps in knowledge
- ...read those things.
-study for GRE, take it at end of the summer
-plan / read ahead for senior sem
-using list of potential advisors, get a handle on their areas and read articles & books

maybe
-kenchreae?
-syriaca.org

analogia

I have a knack for analogies. I did not know this about myself. It doesn't come out as much in my writing. But when I see that my students are very confused, I can pull out a good analogy ("so if your theology of salvation is a plant...") or an example ("remember in pocahontas? but then let me tell you what's happening now with natives and resources") at the drop of a hat. One of the things I was most worried about with teaching was that I wouldn't be able to communicate clearly. In conversations with friends and acquaintances I tend to use weird syntax, make strange examples, and generally not make much sense, especially when I feel pressure. But I think the added dash of authority I get in the classroom helps my confidence and releases my mouth and mind to do their best work.