July 1 began a new fiscal year for InterVarsity, which for staff means (among other things) it’s time for us to look back on the past 12 months and look ahead to the next 12 months. For Tom and me, this will include looking at the Emerging Scholars Blog. As we say in our sidebar:
We publish on Tuesdays and Thursdays on topics like academic vocation and calling, spiritual formation in the academy, and the integration of theology with academic disciplines.
I can already tell you that we’re planning on some new guest bloggers in the next two months, which will add one or two additional days of blog posts with some different takes on our basic themes. I can also point you to our Top Posts page, which lists our most popular posts.
But what I can’t do is answer this question:
What would YOU like to see on the blog in 2011-2012?
Leave your thoughts in the comments, or send them directly to me if you prefer. I look forward to hearing your ideas and opinions.
P.S. Hope you had a great Fourth of July! If you’re American, that is. For everyone else, I hope you had a perfectly adequate 4 July 2011.
The former Associate Director for the Emerging Scholars Network, Micheal lives in Cincinnati with his wife and three children and works as a web manager for a national storage and organization company. He writes about work, vocation, and finding meaning in what you do at No Small Actors.
Two things, purely selfish since they are subjects I think about a lot:
1.Flesh out the relationship between methodology and metaphysics (Marsden’s “framing the question” idea isn’t cutting it for me)
2. The emerging critique of expertise, especially in social and applied sciences, exemplified by thinkers/scholars as diverse as Nassim Taleb, John Ionnandis, and Jim Manzi. The gist of the critique is that we know way less than we think we do about complex dynamic systsems. If this critique/project continues to bear fruit it may point the way for a re-emergence of certain pre-modern ideas IMHO.
Thank-you Jay! Great topics.
One of my prayers for 2011-2012 is for dialogue over and refining of how we (i.e., those involved in ESN and more largely in InterVarsity) understand/live out in Christ our conceptions of “academic vocation and calling, spiritual formation in the academy, and the integration of theology with academic disciplines.”
In particular, I would love to have campus discussion/reading groups get involved by discussing/reading some key pieces (on their campuses) and then have a larger ESN online discussion forum. Even invite some of the scholars to respond 🙂 Interested?
I hear that it is very difficult for new graduates to find jobs in the humanities area. Perhaps someone can talk about that and suggest some ways or places to look for work.
Also, this is a blog about Christianity and the academy, so why not have a Bible scholar on here?
Thank-you for your suggestions Teluog!
I agree that it would be helpful to once again address the concern of new graduates finding jobs in the Humanities, would this be best done as interviews/essays and if so, by whom?
As a starter I suggest Mike’s 2009 ESN post, https://blog.emergingscholars.org/2009/03/why-get-a-phd-in-the-humanities/, followed by the responses of seven Christian faculty and postdocs in the humanities to the question:
“From a Christian perspective, why should anyone pursue a doctorate in the humanities?” — http://www.intervarsity.org/gfm/esn/resource/why-get-a-phd-in-the-humanities
A general piece about the ‘Spiritual Difficulties on the Job Market,” written by recent graduate, can be found on ‘the Well,’ http://www.intervarsity.org/gfm/well/resource/spiritual-difficulties-on-the-job-market
As for a regular contributor who is a Bible scholar, do you have a particular suggestion or a regular topic for exploration (e.g., apologetics, devotions for the academic, faith-vocation, hard questions)?
First, by “humanities” I meant the entire realm of fields that deal with the humanities, not just the single Humanities field itself. So fields like History, ancient Near East, Classics, Theology, Philosophy, Biblical Studies, any literature field, etc.
As for interviews vs. essays, I don’t think it matters. Either works fine.
As for a Bible Scholar/Theologian contributor, I think some good topics would be the need for more academics in the church, and more academically minded pastors. Another interesting topic could be how an evangelical Bible scholar/theologian could deal with liberal or nonChristian Bible scholars, such as scholars who don’t believe the Bible is divinely inspired or who believe in the JEDP theory of the OT, etc.
Teluog, Thank-you for your additional response. It is very much appreciated. Wish I had a “like” button for your suggestions. I’m talking with Mike about adding that feature in 2011-2012 🙂
Good thoughts all… Tom mentioned to me in person the idea of some shorter posts (200-400 words) and various themes (Humanities, Science, Quotes, Devotional, Vocational, Interviews, book studies, and regular guest posts), all of which sound good to me.
Keep up the good work.
Also the concept of separately addressing various categories of academics (undergrad students, grad students, post-docs, junior faculty, senior faculty, and others) and their unique opportunities and concerns sounds reasonable to me.
Tim, Thank-you for your encouragement and practical input. It’s great to ‘connect’ in so many places 🙂 Continuing to intercede for your research, writing, colleagues, and workplace.
I always like reading people’s stories and personal experiences of their vocation and/or how they reach out to others.
I would also like to see a post on the importance of prayer for the campus and our communities, perhaps with some specific prayers points. It would be neat to have an ESN day of prayer for our specific campuses, where we were praying in unison for our communities and campuses.