Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

I admit it, the main reason why I'm posting this now is so that I'll have an excuse to trot out this new icon (which was created by the talented and generous cdaae), 'cause it's pretty.

But I have been meaning to draw attention to a book that might be of interest to other scholars and contemplators of all things meta: The Myth of the American Superhero, by John Shelton Lawrence and Robert Jewett (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, MI: 2002).

The following quotes from the very beginning of the book should suggest why I'm finding it rather intriguing and pertinent to my research interests: ( cut to avoid boring most people )

Because I have trouble accessing anything on Xanga on my home computer (software too old, or something, I guess), but loved what one RL friend wrote recently in the comments on another friend's xanga blog, I had to offer this reprint of the "Bostonian Creed" (the ancient Nicene creed re-imagined for a secular age and faith): ( Read more... )

See the original post and comments at http://www.xanga.com/item.aspx?user=braymp&tab=weblogs&uid=147288909.

And to all those Red Sox fans and their enablers out there: keep the faith!

I've been advised by another LJ user (who's been in the academic game longer than I have) that I shouldn't be quite so free and open with my dissertation research notes, just in case some other scholar mistakes my notes for material in the public domain, rather than regarding them as part of a dissertation I still need and fully intend to write.

I've made sure to add all those who've commented so far to my friends list, so they'll still have access to those entries, and I'd be happy to add anyone else who'd like to take part in this discussion or enjoy all the wonderful ideas people have contributed in their comments, or just take a quick look around (and you can always ask to have your name removed from my list, afterwards, if you decide this isn't something you're interested in after all).

I'm happy to have people read, even if they don't comment, so this is not an attempt to apply pressure to anyone -- I've just been strongly advised to make access to LJ entries which talk about my research-in-progress a tad less public.

So, I'm trying to make sure that these entries remain "within the LJ family," as I'd intended when I posted them (my substitute for a RL dissertation-writing support group, since nobody else within my program shares my interests or could be as helpful as the LJ community has been in hashing out ideas or telling me when I'm getting off-track and irrelevant), rather than showing up on any random Google search and perhaps being borrowed without my knowledge.

Sorry for the annoyance and any inconvenience. And please let me know if there are other ways to handle this (potential) problem that I simply don't know about.

Sisabet's theological reflections on the Bible as the history of God's "Wacky Schemes" in her March 22 LJ entry (arguing that much of what we read in the Bible could be explained if we consider how bored God must have been before cable TV) suggested a really intriguing line of inquiry for biblical scholars. The academic teaching of the Bible may never be the same again, after this (at least, not for my students!). Here are excerpts of comments that particularly struck me: ( Read more... )

Recently (okay, it was just an hour ago on AIM), I made this offhand comment to a friend who'd had help from another fan friend in improving her website, "It's good to have friends in all corners of fandom." Her response was: "I suppose. Lots of those corners are like boxing rings right now, with the Spuffy people arguing with the slash fans. It's very silly."

For some reason, her characterization of the current state of BtVS fandom online made me think of that old standard of graduate education and corporate retreats, Thomas Kuhn's THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS. Being tired and somewhat over-full of spanakopitas from my evening's entertainment (killer Scrabble with a fellow grad student), I started to prate along the following lines, and afterward decided that my friend might be right in suggesting that there was some method to my madness. Here's the gist, so that you, dear friend and reader, can make up your own minds about the method/madness question:

"That silly arguing sounds like what precedes a paradigm shift, if Kuhn is to be believed -- everybody gets busy arguing about the rules and trying to slice the pies a little thinner, draw the boundary lines a little tighter. Maybe Buffy Fandom is in for a paradigm shift, a la Quantum physics, any day now? It seems as though the big questions (redemption, meaning of life, something to sing about, nature of love and vocation, etc.) aren't being asked and answered much right now, because we're on the verge of coming up with a new way to look at things. '...And the world ain't comin' to an end, my friend; the world's just comin' to a start...'

"Maybe that's what's happening, really. Or maybe, if we say it, it will become fact -- this being a quantum mechanics universe in which observation affects what's observed, and all."

While I'm waiting with great hopefulness to see what the new season of "Angel" (with Spike!) brings tomorrow night, I'm going to hold on to my paradigm shift idea as long as I can. I mean, I can't believe that all the creative energy and forward momentum of BtVS fandom has dried up or reached a dead-end with the ending of the show. All that good, creative, life-giving energy has to have something up its sleeve, something that's about to be born. 'I feel it in my heart: the world is comin' to a start.'

['...' lyrics quoted from the musical "Purlie"]