Matthew Boedy reflects on how we might respond to overnaming in academic life.
A Response to Overnaming
After the fall, how then do we live? How then do we name?
Overnaming as The Fall
In this post I want to dive deeper into the original ‘scene of the crime’ for clues toward the character of the relationship between language and naming.
An Introduction to Naming
David [Dark] exposes that we assume names or labels can ‘take care’ of others. Names or labels can ‘solve’ mysteries, neutralize critics, and of course get us somewhere we want to go faster, hence the shortcut.
Campus Carry, Civic Conversations, and Public Intellectuals
It is my expert opinion as a Christian who has lived through three mostly disastrous decades of Christian engagement with politics that we do not best convert people through political issues when we seek to pronounce the Christian position on it, when we use politics as medium for the gospel. Second, it is my opinion as an emerging scholar in rhetoric that my field speaks to all people and also has deep ties to Christianity. And as a “public scholar” I note those two facts while urging a collective, democratic approach to issues at hand.