IHE Book Club
Dec
15th
Inside Higher Ed wants to start a book club. Read about it here.
Grading and the professor’s turmoil
Dec
4th
The term just recently ended at Winebrenner and UF and I just spent day and night grading papers. Grading is one of my most dreaded points of the term. It is when I, the guy who tries cultivating a relationship with students throughout the term, have to sometimes become the bad guy. It is also the point at which I get little sleep and start pulling out my hair. What I find is a menagerie of papers and not all are equal. Every classroom has a range of students whose skills fall widely across the spectrum. Some are really good and I can tell the student put a lot of time into the process. However, there are plenty of papers that I have to step away from before giving a final grade, just to make sure that I’m grading fairly. This is particularly true of really bad papers.
I’ve thought about writing a post on what I want my students to know about grading, but never have. Fortunately, someone else did and it’s spot on (HT: @jrdkirk).
I do not pull punches when I am reading papers. I try not to be hurtful, but I have no interest in lying to you. Everyone’s work could be improved. Part of my job is pointing out where your paper could be better. Continue reading at Mary Shore’s blog, Balancing Pose.
Breaking News: Colum McCann wins National Book award for fiction
Nov
19th
Let the Great World Spin
Colum McCann
Random House (2009)
368 Pages
From the Guardian: “Colum McCann won the fiction prize at the National Book awards in New York last night for his novel Let the Great World Spin, an allegorical story inspired by the events of 9/11 and set around Philippe Petit’s tightrope walk between the twin towers in 1974…He was cited by judges for achieving “a gravity-defying feat”. “From 10 ordinary lives he crafts an indelibly hallucinatory portrait of a decaying New York City, and offers through his generosity of spirit and lyrical gifts an ecstatic vision of the human courage required to stay aloft above the ever-yawning abyss,” they said.” Continue reading…
Life brings changes and academics little sleep
Nov
9th
Having begun in my new position as Assistant Professor of Historical and Theological Studies and Director of the Master of Arts (Theological Studies) program, I’ve had little time for blogging. It’s been a busy term, but an enjoyable one. The Spring doesn’t look any less busy, particularly since I’ll have four courses (American Cultures and Religious Traditions, Hermeneutics, Christian Theology, and Philosophy for Theologians) and possibly two students writing their theses. At any rate, this is the academic life. We find rare moments to relax, but hey, we get to read. I’m hoping to fit in a vacation and a couple conferences this academic year, perhaps the AAR midwest conference.
Other than being busy doing all that professorial stuff, I’m working through final edits for a finished manuscript. The majority is edited and ready to go. I’ve begun circulating a proposal with publishers, hoping that it won’t have to circulate through too many. Here’s to hoping. Also, Mindy and I are in the process of purchasing a house in Perrysburg, Ohio. Perrysburg is a beautiful city with just enough illusion of hills near the Maumee River that you can forget for a moment that you are living on the flat earth of Northwest Ohio. She is now the Director of Communications and Program Development for St. Timothy’s Episcopal church in Perrysburg, so this will reduce our drive time.
I plan on logging more hours on this blog, particularly during the December break. If you are one of the half-dozen readers still with this blog, stop on by and leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you.
The Lead: Not ready for prime time?
Oct
30th
The details on the union between former Anglicans and the Roman Catholic Church have apparently not really be resolved yet. The Episcopal Cafe has the news.
It appears that the news of the new Apostolic Constitution is not ready for prime time. Richard Owen reports in the Times of London that the publication of an Apostolic Constitution outlining a process for welcoming Anglicans into the Roman Catholic Church is delayed because of controversy in the Vatican over the specifics, in particular priestly celibacy. Continue reading…
The Immanent Frame interview with Harvey Cox
Oct
30th
The Immanent Frame, the great blog on religion, secularism, and the public sphere, has an interesting interview with the now retired Harvard Divinity professor, Harvey Cox.
NS: When you talk about these trends—as a theologian on the one hand and a scholar of world religions on the other—how much are you being descriptive and how much prescriptive?
HC: This is a question often raised about my books over the years. Is this theology or is it phenomenology of religion? I’ve tried in my career to bring those two closer together, as I really think they ought to be. What is happening in religious communities ought to play an important role in constructive theological work. If congregations flounder along without much theological input or critique, that won’t be good; and if theology doesn’t have a connection back to congregations, it is going to get pretty airy. It can’t rely only on what past theologians have written. It has to be attentive, as I would say theologically, to what the Spirit is doing in the Church—or, more broadly, among other religions. I don’t see this as a contradiction at all. All of my books are like that, and this one is too. Read the rest of the interview here.
Also worth noting is the interview done by Krista Tippett at Speaking of Faith. Listen to the audio of that here.
