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.