Boundaries, Elves and Writing

Today a colleague of mine shared with me that he had seen a medieval Christian incantation to ward off elves. Besides the fact that I didn't realize that elves were something that someone would want or need to ward off (aren't they benevolent and beautiful?), I'm still tickled when I run across something that patently challenges our notions about what is "Christian" or "Pagan." The ways that individuals and communities blend, bend and borrow seemingly disparate and immutable categories, beliefs and practices is simply fascinating to me. Maybe this is one of the reasons I enjoy studying religion. I find the mixing of kinds and the breaking of boundaries enjoyable in my scholarship as well.

While I was trained as a New Testament scholar, which is a field known for its sometimes strict boundaries, I entered the field (my doctoral studies) with a pretty broad range of interests. Unlike some of my colleagues, I didn't follow a neat trajectory from college to grad work in NT. After dong an undergraduate degree in philosophy (even though what I really wanted to study was art) and spending some time working for an urban community organizing, faith-based non profit, I graduated with little sense of a specific career path. Yet, a love of literature and existential philosophy pushed me to think about grad schools. When I applied to masters degree programs, however, I applied to a variety of programs ranging from philosophy programs to masters in divinity. I went where the money was (i.e. a full ride fellowship)--divinity school. Even there I didn't entirely focus on NT or biblical texts, even though a NT professor I had the first semester began serving as an unofficial mentor. I continued my affair with the melancholy Dane, worked on my art, did some congregational analysis, along with studying Greek and Hebrew. As I thought about Ph. D. programs, I decided to do NT since I thought it would tether me to a single era/ set of literature from which I could then explore a variety of questions, methods, interpretations, ideas, images, etc, etc.

But, as is typically the case, grad school meant focus, even though I was also encouraged by some of my mentors to push on the boundaries of the field. (At least to some extent.) I embraced conceptual metaphor theory and cognitive linguistics as methodological tools and I sought to engage not only ancient, but also medieval and modern feminist interpretations of the text in my work. Still, for the sake "finishing" my dissertation I ended up with a fairly traditional piece of work. Since then my scholarship largely has been confined to more traditional NT work. It's been focused on the ancient world and employs the theoretical primarily as a tool for explicating the text. It's fine, but not the creative blend of interests that followed me into graduate school.

More recently, however, I've been trying to recapture the fun that I had when I first entered academia. I used to enjoy odd pairings, crossing disciplinary boundaries, employing the theoretical as I engaged the concrete. I want to recapture those impulses--as long as my fears don't get the best of me. I've written one essay that should come out shortly that really does push these sorts of boundaries, as I engage Revelation's image of the Whore, ancient and modern understandings of prostitution and queer theory. And now I'm working on the book that I wanted my dissertation to be, which is an exploration of how real readers have envisioned Revelation's city-bride imagery, the image of the New Jerusalem. This requires, obviously, engaging the works of interpreters who are not necessarily within my field of expertise (NT). In fact, I'm engaging the writings of two medieval women and the multi-media works of two modern women. This definitely requires me to do a lot of work in areas that push the boundaries of my knowledge, but it is, quite simply, fun and invigorating work. Still, there are times when I worry that I'm pushing too far. How will my colleagues in other disciplines feel? Am I stepping on any toes? Will anyone understand what I'm trying to do? I try to approach my work with humility. I realize that I'm not a medieval historian, art historian, church historian, theorist on modern American hermeneutics, etc, etc, etc. I'm not and I'm not trying to be. Still, I would like to be in conversations with other disciplines and scholars. I think these conversations can help me be a better New Testament scholar, a better reader of texts. Engaging a variety of conversations and media can, hopefully, make me a better interpreter of the subtle ways that texts challenge and inspire. So, as I move forward with my work, I resolve to embrace the challenge of working across disciplines, the possibility of engaging multiple intellectual senses. I want to be a little like the elvish incantation--breaking boundaries and challenging people's perceptions. I'll try not to worry too much . . .

Hooray! My Student Had a Thought Today!

So the title of this post really isn't supposed to be "snarky" or facetious. I am genuinely excited about my student having "a thought" today.

I guess that I should start by explaining that I am participating in a Summer Undergraduate Research program with one of my advisees. The program is intended to give students a chance at doing research side-by-side with a faculty person as she does her own research over the summer. The model, like so many undergraduate research (UR) programs, is based upon how work happens in the sciences. It assumes that the faculty person has a project that a student might be able to participate in/ help with. My sense is that natural and social scientists might be able to isolate a small part of their own research for a student to expand upon, verify, analyze, etc. Hopefully, this will be beneficial for student and faculty person. Based upon this model of UR, our university encourages students to apply for (with approval of participating faculty members of course) a chance to do "hands on" and "engaged" summer research. The brochures for these types of programs almost always show student and mentor in matching lab coats looking through microscopes or pouring bright blue fluid into beakers. Whatever they are doing, they have the lab coats.

UR in the Humanities looks a little different. First, we don't normally wear lab coats. Total bummer. Second, Humanities research isn't always so active and faculty research projects are not usually something that we can share with students. In my own field, New Testament, students do not have the language training that would make it possible for them to help me. And, I don't feel like teaching enough sections of koine Greek to get students up to speed. Oh my. Thus, students who work with me in the summer, usually end up developing their own, independent research project. This, of course, involves a lot of reading. Thus, if "University Relations" came to my office to shoot photos for the Summer UR program brochure, they would capture student and faculty member sitting somewhat in the same vicinity, reading, writing, staring, face-booking, chocolate eating, reading, note-taking, face-booking, sitting, writing . . . you get the picture. It's just not "sexy" like the lab coats.

So, back to the thought. My student is doing research on space, temples and visionary texts (i.e. Ezekiel and Revelation). For the past couple of weeks she's been reading the texts in different translations, taking notes in commentaries, looking for articles, face-booking, taking notes, reading, sitting, etc. Today, however, in the midst of all of this, she called out from the table outside of my office, "I just realized something!" She was so excited. She was absolutely giddy. She explained, "I just connected Ezekiel's use of blah, blah, blah, blah! I can't believe it!!" (I don't want to give away her thought.) By looking at the text, poking around the sources, playing around with the text, she had come up with an insight on the text that was genuinely her idea. A thought. She had a thought. Now, the chances are good that others have had similar thoughts about the text, even though her thought is not something that we've seen everywhere. But in UR that doesn't really matter (at least from my perspective). What matters is that she processed the text and sources and came up with an interesting idea about the text, an idea that is her own.

Now, don't get me wrong, I would never say that she came up with this idea 100% on her own. She's taken classes related to her topic, she's read articles, she's talked with me about the text (and of course that's really made her super smart), she's been in conversation with others, etc. In other words, her thought does not emerge out of isolation. Still, she has processed all of her interactions with the text, with others, etc in her own way and it has become her own. In fact, I think that this is what she was really excited about--she now had an idea that could argue, demonstrate, explain in her own terms. This became evident as we shared lunch with a couple other people who are on campus doing work. She shared her thought with them and answered their questions over pizza. Other scholars might be used as evidence or as conversation partners, but she seemed to see herself as the authority on this particular idea. It was kind of marvelous. Because on this day, I got to see my student have a thought, a thought that really seemed to empower her.

Of course, I hope my student has more moments like this, especially since I'll be working with her over the next two years. But, I'm really happy that I got to experience this moment. Sometimes I wonder why I bother going in to the office every day of the summer "just" to work alongside my student. Some faculty just meet up occasionally with their students for "check-ins." But, at times like these, I have a little glimpse of why I come in during summer and why I do what I do in general. It's a good experience.