Mark Goodacre recently blogged about the collision of two worlds that some religion scholars inhabit: the world of AAR and/or SBL membership, and the world of Doctor Who fandom. His post starts beautifully:
There will be lots of doctors walking around in tweedy jackets this weekend in Baltimore but sadly, most of them will be obsessing about their papers at the Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting this weekend and not about the matter of real interest to the rest of the world, the fiftieth anniversary of the longest running science fiction show of all time, Doctor Who, the first episode of which aired on 23 November 1963.
Iโve also mentioned it more than once on this blog: this yearโs annual meeting overlaps with both the 50th anniversary special itself, and the documentary โAdventures in Space and Time.โ Iโm actually presenting in a session right at the time of the BBC simulcast, and so if anyone in that session pulls out headphones and seems to be tuning me out, I will find it hard to be offended.
Iโll be going to a 10pm showing of โThe Day of the Doctorโ on the big screen in 3D on Monday night, if all goes well. If you will be at the conference, let me know if youโd like to join us!
Also, it looks like Wipf and Stock, the distributor of the book I co-edited on religion and Doctor Who, will have copies ready and available at AAR/SBL! I understand that theyโve switched the title and subtitle around, becauseย Time and Relative Dimensions in Faith is not self explanatory on this continent the way that it is in the UK.