Today I’m heading to St. Louis for the National Conference of the Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education, NetVUE. I’m particularly excited to hear Krista Tippett speak at one of the plenary sessions, she of the On Being podcast, radio show, blog, and general fabulousness. I have written before about this conference, and my participation over the past two years in a collaborative group of faculty and staff writing a new book that we finally get to talk about in... Read more
Many good people live and work at the intersections, and I occasionally invite someone to tell a story from where they stand. Today’s piece comes from Nisreen Zaqout, who is a junior at Illinois College majoring in Gender and Women’s Studies and Economics. After graduating, she plans to work on a graduate degree in Gender Studies focusing on the Middle East. Nisreen wants to pursue a career that encourages women in Palestine to gain political presence. She enjoys reading, and her favorite writer is Fyodor Dostoyevsky.... Read more
Many good people live and work at the intersections, and I occasionally invite someone to tell a story from where they stand. Today’s piece comes from Leah Fortner, who is a senior at Illinois College with a major in Psychology and a minor in Gender & Women’s Studies. She plans to move to Oregon and become a Child & Family Psychologist after graduation and currently spends most of her time outside of class working in Child Welfare, providing services to various disadvantaged groups... Read more
Many good people live and work at the intersections, and I occasionally invite someone to tell a story from where they stand. Today’s piece comes from Brittany Spaulding, a Chicagoan who will graduate from Illinois College this May. Brittany looks forward to starting work on her MFA in Poetry at Columbia College Chicago in the fall. She is a Chihuahua enthusiast. When she’s not writing poetry, Brittany spends her free time volunteering at a local animal shelter. I travelled with Brittany and several... Read more
My first book, Coram Deo: Human Life in the Vision of God (Pickwick 2006), is newly available for Kindle starting this week. It originated as my dissertation at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. Here’s an excerpt: A commitment to feminist theological criticism grounds what I identify to be the problem of atonement as it presumes and presents and understanding of the relationship between God and the human being, and establishes a basis for a theology of the eucharist. ... Read more
What’s a great way to spend a heteronormative greeting-card holiday? At conference for gay and lesbian college student activists? Yesss! A couple of years ago, it so happened that I was teaching an essay by bell hooks on the patriarchal construct of romantic love on February 14. A key idea in “Romance: Sweet Love” is that the phrase “falling in love” is a big part of the problem. It seemed pretty appropriate for gender and women’s studies students to consider the... Read more
One of the richest, most complicated, and ineffable topics in theology is the Spirit. Some Christians call it the Holy Ghost, though I much prefer the Hebrew term ruach. Breath. Wind. Air. When I have the opportunity to do a little Hebrew vocabulary with my students, I have them hold one hand in front of their mouth, and say the word out loud, drawing out the uuuu and the ccchhh sounds. Try it. You can feel it … your breath.... Read more
“No matter your age, you have rights to your own body.” “Churches are a community, but your body is not community property.” “You, and only you, have the ability to say yes or no for yourself.” “Your feelings are valid: It’s OK to be who you are.” “You are loved.” Dianna Anderson is crystal clear about who the reader of her new book, Damaged Goods: New Perspectives on Christian Purity, should be. Damaged girls … that is, anyone who has... Read more
I have written here before about my involvement in the Faith and Reproductive Justice Leadership Institute at the Center for American Progress, and have written to commemorate the anniversary of Roe v. Wade in previous years. Today, I am proud to be one of the signers of a public statement opposing legislation in the House of Representatives that would ban abortion at 20 weeks’ gestation. The bill, H.R. 36, will be voted on tomorrow, the 42nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade. The statement,... Read more
This morning, I participated in a Speak-In on campus during which faculty, staff, and students read and heard the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It was an important way to mark the day, and to start a new semester. The complete list of readings is pictured here. I chose to edit the words of Dr. King together with the words of Audre Lorde and Dr. Brittney Cooper (@ProfessorCrunk for those in the know) to draw a line from... Read more
Caryn Riswold
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