InterVarsity's Emerging Scholars Network
Welcome to the first Emerging Scholars Network Sci-Fi Film Festival! I’ll be having a conversation here on the blog on various classic and current science fiction movies. Feel free to watch alonggh and join the conversation. This week’s film isRead more…
I continue my conversation with Mike Beidler about Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace as we chat about continuity, canon, and capitalism.Read more…
Welcome to the first Emerging Scholars Network Sci-Fi Film Festival! I’ll be having a conversation here on the blog on various classic and current science fiction movies. Feel free to watch along and join the conversation. This week’s film is 1999’s Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.Read more…
On those long, dark Saturdays of the soul, we’ll have a choice. We can adjust our idea of God for a complete explanation now—that God either acted evilly or God was unable to act—or we can believe God is consistent and gain the hope of Resurrection Sunday.Read more…
Should we be so comfortable with splicing genes or otherwise meddling with biology? Shelley dubbed Victor Frankenstein the modern Prometheus. Are we still concerned that the gods will punish us for taking fire from the heavens, demonstrating a level of control over nature reserved for the divine?Read more…
What risks are of greatest concern in your discipline or institution? What risks have been tacitly assumed that you would like to see reconsidered?Read more…
Is there a culture of collaboration in the context where you work or study? How do you incorporate collaborative elements like peer review, mentoring, and public communication into your work?Read more…
When I was a microbiology graduate student, it was generally understood that there were three broad career options: continue on in academia, work for the government, or join the corporate world. Any discussion of one’s future plans and goals typically started with a question about that threefold choice.Read more…
[H]ow a message is framed strongly influences how we respond to the message itself. . . . Tomorrowland doesn’t claim that just changing the kind of science fiction we tell will be enough to address the concerns it has. Read more…
There is much to enjoy about Avengers: Age of Ultron, and it touches on a number of themes worthy of further exploration. Astonishing visuals do a lot of narrative heavy lifting; the action choreography reveals a lot about the characters and their relationships. Consequently, the film has plenty of opportunities to share what’s on its mind. And apparently, that’s God.Read more…
May we point to the path, at times narrow and dark, but never without the Light.Read more…
If the Christian story is true, it is true for all people, places, cultures, and times.Read more…
Our favorite movies tell us who we are and why we are.Read more…
We love stories, tell stories, and read stories, knowing that stories can only be told because the story exists.Read more…
Early in my teaching vocation, I began to train students how to watch movies and how to write movie reviews. Since the early 1990s, classes have watched full-length feature films; interactive responses followed. . . . If you asked my former students now what they remember about my classes then, they would smile and say, “He ruined watching movies for me forever.”Read more…