I thought for sure that I had blogged at some point about Bob MacDonald’s book The Song in the Night, but apparently not, and I am now rather embarrassed by that fact. His work has made an important contribution to my course on the Bible and music in general, and my understanding of the Psalms and the music behind and in the Bible in particular. What Bob did in the book (and continues to do on his blog) is to utilize... Read more
From an article by Wayne Stauffer in Inside Higher Ed: As long as students put off doing writing assignments until almost too late, do not study the course material as well as they should, have low confidence in their academic abilities, settle for doing less than their best in their schoolwork and just don’t feel like putting out the effort and instead grub for grades, there will be plagiarism. In other words, we professors cannot eliminate it entirely, no matter... Read more
This album is one that I owned on record years ago, and when I ceased to continue to maintain a phonograph and a record collection, I ceased to be able to listen to its music any longer. Several of the pieces on the album are haunting and deeply moving. Read more
I could probably add some sort of semi-serious text here to try to turn the above into a mere hook or jumping off point for engaging some topic related to Moses, the Exodus, historical and archaeological investigation, or something else. But I won’t. I could, however, imagine that the above would be useful in the context of science classes for elementary school children. The long-term result, however, would probably be that English speakers would end up spelling osmosis differently in the... Read more
I wasn’t aware until just recently about this conference in the summer here in Indiana, on a topic that I know will interest many blog readers as much as it interests me: religion in the anthropocene. The deadline has been extended, and so this is a good time to share the call for papers! RELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVES AND ALTERNATIVE FUTURES IN AN AGE OF HUMANS MAY 17-20 2018 INDIANA UNIVERSITY BLOOMINGTON, IN. CONFERENCE CALL FOR PAPER PROPOSALS Deadline for... Read more
The Star Trek: Discovery episode “What’ Past Is Prologue” offers a powerful message for our time, with political and religious engagement that struck me as on-target without being heavy handed. Paul Stamets in the parallel universe apparently sold Lorca out to the Emperor and revealed his plot attempt. The parallel Stamets has been using the mycelial network in different ways, giving them much more power but in a way that is destroying the network across the entire multiverse, threatening all... Read more
Setting of three Psalms by Canadian composer Srul Irving Glick. I continue to come across music that I do not recall having heard before as I teach my course on the Bible and music once again. Read more
This looks like a really interesting call for papers! The Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness: Religion, Activism, and Protest Too often, especially in the United States today, religion is seen as the enemy of socio-political progress and change. But even a cursory glance at U.S. history — the Underground Railroad, the Civil Rights Movement, the Sanctuary Movement — attests to the role religion and religious individuals have played in resistance movements. This panel seeks papers that consider the... Read more
Croatian composer Stjepan Šulek. Read more
The X-Files episode “The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat” embodies everything that was great about the classic series, in more ways than one. The classic series never took its conspiracy theories and aliens among us stories so seriously that it couldn’t poke fun at itself, and this episode does that in a way that updates it for the present day. The episode begins in black and white, with a man saying he is not crazy to a cook at diner. He... Read more
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In