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“Widening Rings of Being”: Lessons in Humanity from the Holy Land
On a ledge of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem lies a small wooden ladder called the “immovable ladder.” Legend has it that in the 1800s, an unknown person accidentally left the ladder there after performing some maintenance work. When it was discovered, the six Christian sects who care for the church (and who had divided the stewardship tasks with bitter dispute) could not determine who should remove the ladder because they did not know to which sect the unknown person belonged, and no sect wanted to anger another. Thus, the ladder remains to this day, a sad symbol of the inability of humankind to transcend pride and human folly, even in one of the holiest places in the world. This past summer, I was able to fulfill one of my lifelong dreams of spending a semester studying and praying in the Holy Land—a sacred space of profound meaning in the tradition of Muslims, Jews, and Christians alike. Moved by the stories I studied in the New Testament, I had wanted to travel to Jerusalem since I was a child, and this desire had grown stronger as I grew in age and faith. It is no wonder, then, that upon my wondering disbelief upon arrival, I could only find expression in the words of Orson Hyde: My natural eyes, for the first time, beheld Jerusalem, and as I gazed upon it and its environs, the mountains and hills by which it is surrounded, and considered that this is the stage upon which so many scenes of wonder have been enacted where prophets were stoned, and the Savior of sinners slain, a storm of emotions suddenly arose in...
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Seeking Meaning in Religious Art, in Rome
I just returned from ten days in Rome, a trip divided in two. During the first half, I attended and presented at the bi-annual conference of the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality (SSCS), a scholarly organization I joined in 2016, when I had begun researching and teaching connections between spirituality and literature. I was moved by the organization’s purpose to convene all those “interested in reflecting critically on the life of the Spirit.”[1] What is more, I was touched by the conviction shared by scholars in the field that the study of spirituality is, or should be, self-implicating—that those who study it profess a personal investment in the subject—and that the ultimate aim of such study is not only knowledge, but personal transformation. As I imagined when I joined the SSCS, scholars who study spirituality desire more than to be good scholars, they also seek to be better people, with God’s help. Experience has proved this true, and it makes attending SSCS meetings a joy. During the second half of my stay I was a tourist. Rome has an extraordinary (and extraordinarily diverse) history, as everyone knows, and I tried to take in as much of it as I could. While I loved the Colosseum, Palatine Hill, and Roman Forum, I found myself especially drawn to the troves of religious art in such institutions as the Vatican Museum and the Borghese Gallery, as well as in the gorgeous churches, dense with beauty, scattered across the city. Part of the reason why I found this art so compelling is probably obvious: I’m a religious person who enjoys religious things, which is why I joined the scholarly society whose...
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Eternal Poe, Global Poe
As academic publishing becomes increasingly complex, many believe that single-author journals are on the decline. As newly appointed editor of Poe Studies: History, Theory, Interpretation, though, Professor Emron Esplin isn’t worried because “not every author is Poe; he is just that influential on world writing.” As a poet, fiction writer, critic, and inventor of the detective genre, Poe needs no defense or justification. In my interview with Dr. Esplin this week, he mentioned that Poe is highly relevant for the current moment because “he’s a writer of horror and terror, and we live in a time of terror. Post-9/11, we live in a state of constant paranoia.” And it’s hard to disagree: entertainment today is full of detective stories (Sherlock, Law & Order, CIA), horror (it seems that a new scary movie lands in theaters every week), and explorations of criminal “madness” (Criminal Minds, Mindhunter). The footprint left by Poe’s work is undeniable, and that’s without even acknowledging the international effects wrought by this touchstone author. Dr. Esplin had Poe’s worldwide reputations in mind when he was deciding whether to accept the editorial position: “I thought, if I do this it’s because there are certain things that I want to see happening in Poe Studies. One of those things that is already happening, and that I would like to see more, is an analysis of Poe as a globally influential writer.” In his own work in translation studies, Dr. Esplin found that although Poe was and is a major figure in a multiplicity of literary traditions, most Poe scholars don’t have access to a majority of “foreign” Poe scholarship because it has only been published in the source languages...
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Mean Parents, Doing Hard Things, and Learning Foreign Languages as a Life Skill
All of us know that going to school can be tough—heavy backpacks to carry, loads of homework to do, enduring the awkward rituals of social interaction, and trying to stay awake during boring lectures are just a few of the familiar challenges. So why would anyone want to go to school in a language they don’t speak or understand? In some cases, such as that of my children, it might seem to be a sadistic trial imposed by mean parents on their unsuspecting offspring. When I got the chance to spend my sabbatical in Germany this year, I was delighted, in large part because I wanted my younger children (aged 9, 12, and 16) to attend German schools, even though they didn’t speak any German. We did a little weekly language study for the year or so before moving overseas, but it was hard for them to take it seriously at the time, so the first month of school came as quite a shock. Not understanding anything the teachers said was difficult, of course, but many other things were also unfamiliar, from the way class schedules were arranged (2-5 hours of various subjects strewn apparently at random across the week) to the kinds of pens people used (who knew that fountain pens with replaceable ink cartridges were a thing?). Only the youngest one cried on the first day of school (three times, as a matter of fact), but all three of them have had to tackle some hard things—like bicycling 3km each way to school every day after not having ridden a bike in ten years, taking French tests in German when you don’t speak either language, and trying...
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Events
Colloquium: Roundtable Discussion
When: Thursday, Oct 10, 2019
Where: 4010 JFSB
more event details ->
Colloquium: Don Chapman
When: Thursday, Oct 17, 2019
Where: 4010 JFSB
more event details ->
Undergraduate Research Symposium
When: Friday, Nov 1, 2019
Where: 4010 JFSB
more event details ->
Humanities Center Blog
“Widening Rings of Being”: Lessons in Humanity from the Holy Land
On a ledge of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem lies a small wooden ladder called the “immovable ladder.” Legend has it that in the 1800s, an unknown person accidentally left the ladder ...
continue reading ->
Seeking Meaning in Religious Art, in Rome
I just returned from ten days in Rome, a trip divided in two. During the first half, I attended and presented at the bi-annual conference of the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality (SSCS), ...
continue reading ->
Eternal Poe, Global Poe
As academic publishing becomes increasingly complex, many believe that single-author journals are on the decline. As newly appointed editor of Poe Studies: History, Theory, Interpretation, though, Professor Emron Esplin isn’t worried because “not every author ...
continue reading ->
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