The Emerging Scholars Blog

I hope you had a happy Thanksgiving. Mine was a bit abbreviated, as our two-year-old came down with a stomach virus and I had to stay home with her instead of joining the rest of the family. The worst part: not getting to debate the merits of the movie Once with my wife’s cousin’s husband. (For my take on the movie, see here.)

But today is going better. I just received via UPS the camcorders
that Tom Trevethan and I will be using at Following Christ 2008. We’ll be interviewing faculty and students about following Christ in the academy, for use next year on the ESN and Faculty Ministry websites.

Any suggestions about questions, topics, or interview subjects? If you had five minutes with an accomplished Christian faculty member, what would you ask them?

In case you haven’t already, I’d encourage you to read, practice, and share material from the brief CT article Eat, Drink, and Relax* with colleagues, family, friends, and house parties. 

Bonus:  how about this life vision?  More on it after Thanksgiving, unless you’d like to make a comment before then ;-)

Puritanism was impelled by the insight that all of life is God’s. The Puritans lived simultaneously in two worlds — the invisible spiritual world and the physical world of earthly existence. For the Puritans, both worlds were equally real, and there was no cleavage of life into sacred and secular. All of life was sacred. —  Leland Ryken. Worldly Saints: The Puritans As They Really Were.  Zondervan, 1986.

*Note:  Written by Elesha Coffman who was managing editor of Christian History & Biography. She is now working on a Ph.D in church history from Duke University.

Inside Higher Ed spoke with anthropologists at a “Mothering (in) the Field” panel discussion at the recent American Anthropological Association annual meeting. The topic: how do they conduct their fieldwork and be mothers at the same time? It’s an interesting article, with lots of great quotes.

So, how do you balance your research commitments with your commitments as a mother or father?

A new issue of the Emerging Scholars Review was sent out by email yesterday; articles from the issue will be appearing on the ESN website shortly. If you didn’t get your copy, but would like to, be sure to join ESN or update your membership with your current email address.

For our next issue, we’d like to celebrate ESN members who have recently accomplished something in their academic career: published an article or book, received a faculty appointment or tenure, completed a degree, etc. If that’s you, be sure to let me know. Include your name as you’d like it printed, your current university or position, and a description of your accomplishment.

Inside Higher Ed reports today on National Science Foundation’s data on 2007 earned doctorates. Overall, 48,079 doctorates were awarded by U.S. institutions last year, an increase of 5.4% over 2006. This is the fifth straight year of increases.

Humanities Ph.D.s, however, declined 4.6%, led by “Letters” (English literature & language, classics, etc.), which declined by 6.9%. Wow. What this means for literature fields, I’m not sure. I’d be interested in seeing how the MLA or other associations interpret the data.

Nearly everyone cares — or says he cares — about art. After all, art ennobles the spirit, ­elevates the mind, and educates the emotions. Or does it?  — The End of Art by Roger Kimball, Copyright (c) 2008 First Things (June/July 2008).

How about The End of Art?  Take some time to reflect upon and discuss this article with friends, family, and the blog over Thanksgiving break.  To tease you a little, here’s the conclusion after ruminations on Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Jones, Murray, modern/postmodern art (to drop a few of, but not all of the names): 

Man is the sort of creature whose nature is to delight in art and aesthetic experience; I believe that he is also, by nature, a religious animal — a creature who becomes who he really is only by acknowledging something that transcends him. These different aspects of humanity will often conspire, but we do both a disservice if we blur or elide their essential difference.

In addition to the Emerging Scholars Review, InterVarsity also publishes The Lamp Post, a quarterly email from Faculty Ministry. (If you have ever received or read the Faculty Ministry Newsletter, The Lamp Post is the new iteration of that publication.) It’s a great companion to the Emerging Scholars Review, as it features theological articles, reviews, and news specifically for Christian faculty.

A new edition of The Lamp Post will be published next week. If you’d like to subscribe (it’s free), click here.

While you’re at, you should also check out The Well, a publication of Women in the Academy and Professions. You can subscribe to that free email publication by clicking here.

In case you haven’t already, I’d encourage you to visit the C.S. Lewis blog. The blog, officially part of HarperOne’s C.S. Lewis site:

offers original work on and about C. S. Lewis from scholars who have written far and wide about his stories, his theology, and his world.

I was particularly excited to see the most recent post, Parables for Pilgrims, excerpted from a work by David Downing. Over the past several years, I’ve gotten to know Downing, R. W. Schlosser Professor of English at Elizabethtown College in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and value the insights which he has to share.  As you may know he has written two pieces for InterVarsity Press:  The Most Reluctant Convert: C. S. Lewis’s Journey to Faith and Into the Region of Awe: Mysticism in C. S. Lewis

  

P.S. He also has an excellent piece on the Ransom Trilogy, see here  Why is the Ransom Triology so ignored?

In the upcoming Emerging Scholars Review (out this week, God willing), we’re going to feature a “best of the blog” article. What posts or comments should we include?

This spring’s Chronicle of Higher Education piece The Myth of First-Year Enlightenment has more to consider (Note: link to earlier post here). Of particular interest are the practical steps which Tim takes to address quintessential Americans in the classroom. Any students or faculty have reactions to the proposed shift in learning objectives and new classroom style?  Read the rest of this entry »