I was delighted when I was offered the chance to attend an advance screening of the movie Tolkien. One of the first things I did was to try to secure at least one additional ticket so that I could bring along my friend and colleague Frank Felice. He is probably the biggest fan of J. R. R. Tolkien that I know (and as you can probably guess, I know a lot of Tolkien fans). He knows the details of Tolkien’s biography... Read more
I recently had the opportunity to make a guest appearance on the program at a conference about Batman that took place at Bowling Green State University. I call it a “guest appearance” because I was not originally slated to be on the program, but after a good friend of mine had to cancel after he was already on the draft program, we were able to arrange for a substitution. I thus focused on engaging with his work on the... Read more
I hope to be able to resume the Paul APB series soon. In the meantime, here is a collection of blog posts related to Paul and his writings that I hope you’ll enjoy! Steve Wiggins shared thoughts on the UMC debates about human sexuality that drive a wedge between Paul and Jesus in a manner that is very common. Here is an excerpt: Ironically the UMC has lined up against the Gospels. Christianity’s sexual hangups began with the apostle from... Read more
Call for papers: Productive Futures Productive Futures: The Political Economy of Science Fiction Bloomsbury, London, 12-14 September Keynote speakers: Dr. Caroline Edwards, Dr. Joan Haran Guests of honour: Aliette de Bodard, Zen Cho, Tade Thompson The history of science fiction (SF) is a history of unreal economics: from asteroid mining to interstellar trade, from robotic workforces to utopian communes, from the abolition of money and property to techno-capitalist tragedies of the near future. The London Science Fiction Research Community (LSFRC)... Read more
The Senses of Science Fiction: Visions, Sounds, Spaces An international conference organized by the Speculative Texts and Media Research Group, American Studies Center, University of Warsaw December 5-7, 2019 University of Warsaw, Poland For most of its history, or at least since the late 19th century, the core conversations of science fiction (SF) have not been kind to the senses. For different reasons in different decades, the creative communities and the critical circles have focused on the genre’s status as... Read more
I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to participate in the Inside Higher Ed 2019 Leadership Series workshop “The Future of Gen Ed 2019.” It was incredibly informative and at times downright inspiring. You can read Coleen Flaherty’s account of the event that inside Higher Ed published. What follows below is based on my own notes taken while in attendance. The introductory session reminded us that Gen Ed is distinctive of US higher ed in comparison to others, especially... Read more
Richard Beck wrote: People don’t just wake up one day to suddenly and brazenly espouse a heresy. In my experience, you end up a heretic because there’s a gnawing theological issue that’s keeping you up at night. The burden and size of this issue often grows and grows until a lack of progress in its resolution becomes intellectually and emotionally intolerable. The biggest culprit here is theodicy. But it can also be a particular view of God or the “texts... Read more
Anyone who makes a sweeping generalization about the inability of technology to being a means and mediator of grace has had a very narrow experience. They have never seen someone living in a foreign land for a long time reconnect with an old friend from back in their home country. For that matter, they must never have seen someone who was sad or suffering take momentary but real comfort from a cat video. But they have probably had the experience... Read more
This week’s podcast features John the Baptist both as guest and as subject of discussion. By this stage, you’re already clued in that my guest is Jonathan David Lawrence of Canisius College, but you’ll still have to listen to the podcast to find out how he got that nickname. Among the things we talk about in the podcast is gamification. Jonathan created a card game to introduce students to similarities and differences between creation accounts across a range of... Read more
This is another of those posts that started as a link dump and grew until it was out of control. The original idea that sparked it off was the notion of “malaugmented reality” – a phrase I encountered on P.Z.Myers’ blog Pharyngula. We have begun to speak of “augmented reality,” and the experience of the world as having a whole other layer – whether of gods, demons, spiritual warfare, conspirators, aliens, lizard people, or anything else – is potentially a... Read more
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