The Emerging Scholars Blog

Education for Human Flourishing, Cover

Our conversations with hundreds of Emerging Scholars at Urbana 09 precluded us from keeping up with our readings.  But don’t worry, we’ll catch up as soon as our plane lands ;-)

In its place,

1.  swing by our Facebook page to see a few pictures of Emerging Scholars at Urbana 09.  Note:  more coming.

2.  enjoy the kick-off of a series of quotes from Education for Human Flourishing:  A Christian Perspective (Paul D. Spears and Steven R. Loomis, InterVarsity Press, 2009),* by considering an excerpt from the Christian Worldview Integration Series Preface:

The word integrate means “to form or blend into a whole,” “to unite.”  We humans naturally seek to find the unity that is behind diversity, and in fact coherence is an important mark of rationality.  There are two kinds of integration:  conceptual and personal.  In conceptual integration, our theological beliefs, especially those derived from careful study of the Bible, are blended and unified with important, reasonable ideas from our profession or college major into a coherent, intellectually satisfying Christian worldview. … In personal integration we seek to live a unified life, a life in which we are the same in public as we are in private, a life in which various aspects of our personality are consistent with each other and conducive to a life human flourishing as a follower of Jesus. — by Christian Worldview Integration Series editors Francis Beckwith and J.P. Moreland, pp. 9-10.

Questions to ponder as we begin a new year:  Why does integration matter?  How do we go about it?

*Find the title appealing?  Then check out the Preface & Precis of Book and Chapters.

What are you reading, watching, thinking about this week? Anything special with some time off or is there too much going on with the holiday?

As usual, here’s a few which have been on our mind. Let us know your thoughts on any/all of them.  In addition, if you have items you’d like us to consider for the top five, add them in the comments or send them to Tom or Mike.

1.  What did the Oxford University Press select as its 2009 “word of the year”? — Part of the The Higher-Ed News Quiz (Chronicle of Higher Education, December 13, 2009).  What’s your best guess?  We’ll confirm the answer when it’s posted and have some thoughts on the “word of the year.” …  Please, no cheating ;-)

2.  Pittsburgh Sets Vote on Adding Tax on Tuition (Ian Urbina, NY Times, December 15, 2009):  “The tax would be the first of its kind in the nation, and other cities are watching closely as they try to find ways to close their own budget gaps.” — Exemplifies the changing relationship and rhetoric between town & gown during an economically difficult time.  Note: Council puts tuition tax proposal on hold (Rich Lord, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, December 17, 2009).

3. Need another reason to pursue an academic vocation? If you’re a linguist, you might just be called upon to invent a new language. Paul Frommer of USC did just that for James Cameron’s new movie Avatar, joining J. R. R. Tolkien and Marc Orkand (inventor of Klingon) as an inspiration to budding linguists everywhere.

4. From ProfHacker.com: an End of the Semester Checklist, a very practical list to keep your courses, files, and CV in shape.

Books

Tom’s started digging into Education for Human Flourishing:  A Christian Perspective (Paul D. Spears
and Steven R. Loomis, InterVarsity Press, 2009).  If the title catches your interest, then check out the Preface, Precis of Book and Chapters, and keep your eye out for quotes from the book in the coming year.

A Faith and Culture Devotional

If you don’t already have a copy of A Faith & Culture Devotional, click here to learn how to enter a drawing for a free copy.  The first drawing is on August 31st and the second on September 7th. Whether or not you win a copy, consider starting off the new term with a copy in hand.

Thank-you to Kelly Monroe Kullberg for her work on this project and the gift of this week’s devo from John Stott, see excerpt below.  Note:  You may remember our June study Stott’s classic Your Mind Matters.

I believe that anti‐intellectualism and fullness of the Holy Spirit are mutually incompatible. And I dare to say it because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth. Jesus our Lord himself referred to the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Truth, and therefore, it is only logical to say that wherever the Holy Spirit has given his freedom, truth is bound to matter. So I have argued, and argue still, that a proper, conscientious use of our minds is an inevitable part and parcel of our Christian life. …

Would you agree or disagree with me that Christianity* is unfashionable on campus?  If so, would you go further with me to argue that Christianity is even more unfashionable on campus than in our larger culture?  Whether you agree or disagree with me that Christianity is unfashionable on campus, does Christianity need to be unfashionable on campus?  And if so, why and how? Read the rest of this entry »

When Tom Grosh and I launched the Emerging Scholars Blog last August, we had some ideas about what we wanted to write about, but very few ideas about what others would want to read or discuss. After 9 months and over 150 posts, we have a much better idea about what topics resonate with the community that is gathering around this blog. We’ve also learned the importance of consistency in blogging. We know how frustrating it can be to visit one of your favorite websites for new content and not finding any. So, today we are announcing a new editorial schedule and refined focus for the Emerging Scholars Blog. Read the rest of this entry »

What does Nicholas Wolterstorff make of Richard Sennett’s The Craftsman (Yale University Press, 2008)?

About half-way through the review, Wolterstorff critiques Sennett’s advocacy of animal laborans’ (i.e., the laboring human being, who asks How?) ability to function separate from homo faber (i.e., the human being who asks Why? and assumes the role of guide/critic to animal laborans) or at least a conversation in community regarding the ethics of particular crafts.   In particular, Wolterstorff uses Sennett’s treatment of Robert Oppenheimer’s craftsmanship of the atomic bomb  to question whether the worker focused on producing excellent goods for their own sake will ask the question whether the good/product should be created/manufactured at all.  Wolterstorff wraps up by asserting that Sennett’s pragmatism lacks the strength to properly support his incomplete definition of craftsmanship, which finds difficulty in extending into more expansive areas such as proper/good goverance (a significant concern of Hannah Arendt, whose put down of  animal laborans served as a motivation for book): Read the rest of this entry »

Books and Culture March/April 2009

In the March/April edition of Books & Culture:  A Christian Review, Nicholas Wolterstorff’s review of Richard Sennett’s The Craftsman (Yale University Press, 2008) raises concerns of particular relevance to Emerging Scholars.

First, Wolterstorff digs into Sennett’s critique of the lower status given to animal laborans (i.e., the laboring human being, who asks How?) in relationship to homo faber (i.e., the human being who asks Why? and assumes the role of guide/critic to animal laborans).  Some quotes from The Craftsman which particularly resonate with Wolterstorff include:

Thinking and feeling are contained within the process of making. … Western civilization has had a deep-rooted trouble in making connections between head and hand, in recognizing and encouraging the impulse of craftsmanship. — from Thinking with Your Hands, by Nicholas Wolterstorff, Books & Culture:  A Christian Review, March/April 2009, p.30. Read the rest of this entry »

Andy Crouch asks a very good question about Christian integration in economics:

David Brooks gets it just right. We are not machines, and neither is our economy. So where, oh where, are the Christian economists whose work is deeply informed by a non-mechanistic view of human nature, and the ‘faith and trust’ that economies require?’

Brooks is writing about the “empirical prison” of economics on both the right and the left. I have some thoughts, but let’s hear yours first. Who are the Christian economists we ought to be listening to? Are Brooks and Crouch on to something, or are they missing an important point?

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?

Over at Books & Culture, Karl W. Giberson reviews The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing, edited by (in Gilberson’s phrase) “that arch-villain Richard Dawkins.” Gilberson is being cheeky, and he notes that, in this volume, Dawkins’ love for science and skill as a writer and editor shines through. Gilberson notes that Dawkins “is exceptional in being a member of Britain’s most élite scientific and literary societies, the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Literature.”

The review is worth reading. I, for one, love a good piece of science writing. But Gilberson raises a good question:

Literature—plays, essays, screenplays for movies, novels, nonfiction—has to be about something. “Literature” has no natural content any more than sentences have natural meaning. So why isn’t there more “science” in literature? Science transforms both our world and our worldview, and yet a solid work of literature is more likely to be about an alcoholic than a scientist.

‘Twas not always so. I still remember vividly being introduced – really introduced – to John Donne and his great poem, “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning,” which was written to his pregnant wife as he was about to leave for an overseas journey. The time being 1611, and both travel and childbirth being much more dangerous then than now, Donne and his wife had little assurance of seeing each other again. (Indeed, their child was born stillborn while Donne was gone.) Donne’s imagery to comfort his wife was taken directly from science and engineering: metallurgy, draftsmanship, geometry.

Our two souls, therefore, which are one,
    Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
    Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
    As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
    To move, but doth, if th’ other do.

And though it in the center sit,
    Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
    And grows erect, as that comes home.