In this interview, 2016 Christian Scholars’ Foundation Grant Recipient Carrie Bredow describes the psychology research she’s carrying out with the grant and talks about how her faith and academic work interact. For more information about the Christian Scholars’ Foundation Grant, see this post. Applications are closed for 2018 are open, click here to learn more. [Read more…] about Interview: 2016 Christian Scholars’ Foundation Grant Recipient Carrie Bredow
Partners
Highlighting Community: Online Course on Postmodernism and the Bible Starting Soon
ESN Writer David Parry drew our attention to a free course a colleague is offering online as a way to support Christian undergraduate and graduate students in their engagement with postmodern theory. ESN is always excited about innovative ways to connect Christian academics and build conversations, and this MOOC is an encouraging example. Read on for more details.
Ever wondered how to engage with postmodern thought as a Christian? That’s the subject of a free seven-week online course offered by Dr. Christopher Watkin starting on March 13 this year. Dr. Watkin holds a PhD in French philosophy from Cambridge University and is a senior lecturer in French Studies at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. His latest books are French Philosophy Today and Difficult Atheism (Edinburgh UP 2016, 2011). The course is designed for graduate and undergraduate students seeking to explore postmodernism in the light of Christian faith. The course description at Open Learning reads:
This course will help you see what Derrida and Foucault are really saying, and show you how you can bring their thought into conversation with the Bible. You will get an accessible introduction to the thought of two of the most influential French philosophers of recent decades, and you will learn methods for fostering meaningful engagement between philosophical ideas and biblical doctrine. The course is written primarily with Christians in mind, and everyone is welcome to join.
You can find out more at the Open Learning course webpage.
Reimagining the Sacred & the Cool: A Literary Symposium (Highlighting Community)
Missing Books and Culture? Want to have awesome conversations about literature and faith? Wishing you could hang out in a cool Christian study center this spring? Our friends at Upper House, a Christian study center in Madison, Wisconsin, have a way to address all three of those longings. John Wilson of Books and Culture will be a panel moderator at Upper House’s literary symposium on April 7, an event designed to gather Christians across the region for thoughtful conversations in an amazing space. Browse the event description below, or go straight to the event website.Â
Reimagining the Sacred & the Cool: A Literary Symposium at Upper House
Many have argued that the cultivation of a shared literary and moral imagination is vital in a flourishing democracy. And yet the study of literature, and the humanities at large, is no longer central in our educational institutions. While some blame pop-culture, a lack of funding, or technologies of distraction, others have looked within. In Lisa Ruddick’s groundbreaking essay, “When Nothing is Cool,†she argues that “decades of anti-humanist one-upmanship,†and a general “thrill of destruction,†have resulted in a sweeping malaise of suspicion that now defines academic discourse. “Nothing in English is ‘cool,’†she says, but “on the other hand, you could say that what is cool now is, simply, nothing.†Which begs the question, if nothing is cool, what can we celebrate, let alone enjoy?
In this one-day symposium, we will examine the landscape of a literary culture at the limits of hermeneutic suspicion. One path forward, according to philosopher Richard Kearney, would be to reimagine the sacred as a fundamental category of criticism, even for scholars and artists who do not think of themselves as explicitly religious. Looking to the work of 20th century atheists, agnostics, and apostates, like James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Marcel Proust, Kearney illustrates how spiritual and moral impulses consistently inform the literary imagination. In a contemporary setting, the same impulses are voiced in the poetry of Fanny Howe, the late Mark Strand, and Adam Zagajewski, along with the novels of Elena Ferrante, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Don DeLillo, and Michel Houellebecq.
On April 7, 2017, we warmly welcome both Ruddick and Kearney, along with literary critic Jon Baskin, poet G.C. Waldrep, and editor John Wilson, to help us reimagine the sacred, and the cool, and reconsider the place of the literary imagination in our world today.
Double Your Gift to ESN on Giving Tuesday
Give to ESN and double your gift! Generous donors have offered a matching grant of $6000 for ESN.
[Read more…] about Double Your Gift to ESN on Giving Tuesday
Call to support ESN’s daily life
To connect emerging Christian scholars to resources, local communities, and wider networks. Learn more…
We generally try to avoid alarmist communications at ESN, but we truly are at a crucial moment, and we want to invite you to partner with us in supporting Christian academics. Last week we shared the wonderful news that God has blessed and expanded the Emerging Scholars Network’s ministry in the last year and a half. We’re very grateful for the temporary funding which God used to grow ESN over the past few years, but it will be ending soon.
During the summer of 2014, thanks to generous temporary funding Hannah Eagleson, an active member of the Emerging Scholars Network, joined InterVarsity Christian Fellowship staff to develop Scholar’s Compass: a devotional for and by Christian scholars. Although we agreed upon Hannah only serving 10 hours a week, the network quickly called upon her for more hours not only in the development of the devotional (70+ members of the writing team) but also in . . .
- deepening partnerships (e.g., American Scientific Affiliation).
- serving the Urbana Students Mission Conference Sponsors/Scholars program (in which we’ll serve 45-55 students seeking to connect with other Christian academics and grow in understanding their vocations). Pre-Urbana Google Hangouts are already “in session!”
- writing workshops at various Graduate & Faculty Ministry conferences and campus chapters.