nevermind the bricolage

technology repeats theology

We had a very interesting class Monday. We were joined by some professors from Beijing--who are visiting the school. How they wound up in my class I dont know but they were a delight--there were some language issues, but thankfully one of them was able to translate for the others. They were from the religious studies department of Beijing University--the Dean, who teaches philosophy, a taoist philosopher, a marxist studies prof. and a professor of Christian studies, who recently translated some of Graham Ward's stuff into Chinese. The class topic was theology and the body and we began with a reflection on Catherine of Siena and then moved backwards and forwards considering the various ways in which the idea of 'body' has been understood throughout Christian history, and how we might think about it today. There was an interesting roadblock of sorts when it came down to the idea of the 'soul' between those who were very clear in their belief i its existence, but less clear in their ability to explain it in any meaningful way. I'm not a big 'soul' man, unless it's Marvin Gaye--I believe its simply language trying to get at something beyond words. 

I did raise a point made by John Caputo that "technology repeats theology," meaning that miracles in the Bible become medical and technological miracles today--opening up new space to think about the relation between the material and immaterial worlds.

I have been thinking through a book idea around this--techno-theology, exploring the relationship between technology and flesh-the organic and the mechanical, the material and the immaterial, stuff like that.

everything i ate

I finshed up my latest term at the art school last evening. It's been a good term, the students definitely rose to the occasion and did some really interesting work along the way. the classes I teach are in the school of advertsing, but, with the exception of one class on the history of advertising, they tend to be fairly esoteric and connected to advertising mainly by virtue of their focus on the explication, exploration and practice of creative conceptualizing. One of the major projects this term required the students to catalogue everything they ate and drank the entire term and present that information in interesting ways.

Part of the exercise was to think about ways in which needless information can become compelling by virtue of the creative manner of the presentation. I am quite a fan of Nick Felton, whose annual report, is always worth getting a hold of, and his work, plus a few other informational hubs were the root inspiration. Most of the presentations were good, really good actually, and I will try and feature some more later, but I thought this one was particualrly cool. The students made miniature models of everything she ate and drank and presented them categorized in a food tray---nothing too profound or innovative--just hard work, well-focused--the take-out bag actualy has grease stains on it, and slightly obsessive--something I always think leads to interesting stuff.

Unplug from the god of religion?

Before I get into this particular post, it seems that a couple of posts I wrote went astray, not sure what happened, they seem to have disappeared completely, so my lack of posting this past week was not intentional--and they were really, really good posts, haha!!!

Anyway, back to this post, which I will post immediately after writing it to avoid whatever issue took the last one. I teach at a fairly conservative evangelical theological seminary, and I don't think I would be too far off base to suggest that my particular theological positions, such as they are, are not the norm by any stretch of the imagination, but there are perhaps a surprising number of students who do not fit the imagined student constituency, and I manage, by nature of the kinds of classes I teach, to interact with many of them. I have been engaged in a long-term book reading group with a number of students over the years whose progressive and imaginative theologizing has surprised and informed my own again and again. That said, there are any number of students who are way more conservative and rigid than I and I get to interact with them as well. All of that means that my classes can be quite wild journeys--lots of back and forth, lots of provocations and occasional upsets.

My latest class is Theology and Culture, a broad syllabus looking at the relationship between theology and culture, followed by some cultural engagements, designed to introduce ideas about enagaging theologically with the world around us---something that comes as revelatory to some, but more often than not, is something that many of the students simply haven't been equipped for thus far.

I am interested in intersections, the places where any number of things meet, connect and diffuse, and the past couple of weeks we have been exploring the intersections of four things: theology, church, religion and christianity. Part of the process is examining where we are and what might have brought us to this place. With these four topics there is a lot of overlap which is why I clumped them together. yesterday we had a pretty lengthy conversation about religion versus spirituality (cue eye-rolling? yes, but I actually think it is an under-evaluated continuum in terms of exegeting where people are at and going--lots of simplistic interpretations--like most things today it is complex), and we wound up discussing that viral video of the spoken word about hating religion and loving Jesus. There were any number of reactions in the room, ranging from non-plussed to excited. I have to admit that it was my responses that elicited the most reaction. I said that while I could acknowledge the frustratons and legitimate concerns voiced in the video, my real issue was that he had not broken free of his own conceptual horizons and the latter part of the video collapsed for me into a typical understanding of the cross/jesus/sin/god/etc. and that it wasn't religion per se that was his problem, it was his theological grid. This of course, led to discussions about the work of Jesus on the cross--the place of sin/forgiveness etc.

As you may know, I'm a bit of a death-of-god type, so for me the cross means something other than what it might mean for someone else. The conversation didnt get heated at all--it was just surprising to me, no it wasn't, it was affirming once again, that the real work that needs to be done is on the theological--we spend an inordinate amount of time examining forms--what works what doesn't--but theology? It's secondary, even tertiary at times it seems, when it comes to really thinking through that state of things.

It seems to me that we are witnessing the disintegration of the concept of religion in the West, and it is morphing and transforming beneath our feet. The response I think is stronger theological self-definition, a rigorous examination of all aspects of our 'believing' and the avoidance of what Graham Ward names as fetishization--which can only be accomplished by some serious theological reflection and reaction I think. The problem for me with that viral video is that he is unplugging from the wrong thing, or maybe only unplugging from half of the story--it's not just the structures of religion in and of themselves, its the god of those structures-what Bonhoeffer called deus ex machina. Our viral poet still seems lowering that god down into world and until that changes...

on reading 2

Last month I wrote about a frustration with students and book reviews--a general lack of engagement with the actual material and a virtual ignoring of parameters set by a particualr authour with regard to the topic that they were addressing when it came to writing a review.

I came across this comment in the lovink book in a section on Comment Culture. "We need to keep in mind that in this age of self-representation (italics mine), commenting often lacks a direct confrontation with the text or artwork. The present act of replying does not seek a one-to-one dialogue with the creator..." Lovink is addressing comments made on blogs and the like, but it seems to me that the same could be said for interaction with texts of all kinds these days, virtual or otherwise. I found this comment helpful and will see if it makes sense. I might try and do some anecdotal research around this, not quite sure how or what just yet, but something along the lines of self-representation and interaction. I think there is a truth here--the idea being that a person makes comments that are clues to him or herself, acts of self-representation, rather than a critique of a particular work--a shifting away from focus on the text to focus on the interactor--i.e. 'look at me, this is who I am'--a part of us revealed in the likes and preferences we name not only on our Facebook pages but in our thoughts and opinions over and against everything we come into contact with?

(the image is of medieval margin notes from Laphams Quarterly via BMD Love Blog)

Monsters

"There are monsters on the prowl whose form change with the history of knowledge." Michel Foucault.

In honour of Halloween we explored monsters in media yesterday. Zombies, vampires, aliens invaders--the monstrous makes it appearance in our world in any number of ways. What does our fascination with these creatures mean? Why do we enjoy being scared out of our wits? These and other questions were part of our class exploration. It's been said that monsters have their 'tentacles wrapped around the foundations of history', every age and culture seems to have them--the Middle Ages was fascinated with bestial humans, the Renaissance era with wolf-people and conjoined humans, the early modern world with Frankenstein and Dracula, on and on throughout our histories, these monsters and strangers appear again and again.

There are Biblical monsters and biblical roots for our western monsters--Leviathan and Behemoth--the Great Dragon--the Devil--an amalgam of any number of biblical images coalesced into that figure which is at the root of much of our monstrous imagination.

I talked a bit from Richard Kearney's remarkable book, Strangers, Gods and Monsters. He argues that these three figures are the backbone of our self-narration. Strangers operate as a limit experience for us as we try and identify ourselves over and against others--Greeks and their Barbarians, the Europeans their 'savages' etc. Gods are those figures whose power and mystery exceeds our grasp and monsters signal borderline experiences reminding us that we are never wholly sovereign. All of these ideas play out in our cultural imagination and story-telling. These creatures defy the accepted norms of identification and invite us to consider again and again what it means to be human. They are the expression of our fears and concerns, as well as our hopes and aspirations--they say the unsayable, says Kearney.

I quoted John Sallis--What if the truth were monstrous? But nobody really bit on that one, so I didn't explore it too far. I really like the Foucault quote--that the monsters change with the history of knowledge--you can trace their expansion and multiplicity as our world becomes more and more inter-connected and over-loaded---monsters and strangers multiply in our story-telling---a tale of Vampires coming out (True Blood) becomes a pluralized world of vampires, witches, shape-shifters, fairies, more and more strange creatures echoing and voicing our fears and challenges in the 21st century. As our understanding of the universe expands it is no longer just the Martians attacking, it is alien civilizations of all kinds (District 9, Alien etc, etc.) and even technology and technological aberrations (Bladerunner, I Robot etc) become part of our monstrous exploration of human self-understanding.

vd/skull/hat

Today in the History of Ad class we explored advertising during the Second World War, with particualr focus on propaganda, rationing, saving and venereal disease. "Over-paid, over-sexed, and over here," was one response to the presence of American troops in the U.K.--rampant sexual activity almost derailing the Allies close political ties and the subsequent appearance of ads, essentially making women out to be the problem, was a big topic in class. And fortunately for me, one of the ads, feautred a skull, under a very flamboyant hat--one of the few areas where women would be frivolous with fashion during the war years--very Lady Gaga! Commitment to the truth was not a part of the advertising plan as the ad below demonstrates--98%...doubtful!

soularize

I was in San Diego all week for Soularize--the last one actually. Soularize architect, and all-round fine fellow, Spencer Burke and I have been friends for years and have collaborated on a number of things, including the penultimate Soularize event in Nassau. This was bittersweet-the end of an era, but also a wiping of the slate and a fresh beginning. The conference was loose and scrappy as always, small but mighty, with some wonderful people--not the least of which was Jack Caputo--a masterful philosopher/theologian, but also a wonderful human being. "God doesn't exist, God insists," was just one of his many pithy remarks, as he explored the future of God in his talk entitled, Perhaps... That's how Jack rolls, unafraid to challenge widely accepted preconceptions and theories. Pete Rollins, Rita Nakashima Brock, plus the usual emerging church suspects--all combined to make the week an invitation to ee things a little differently, then act accordingly. I would write more, but I am knackered and have too many guests to sort out.

mcluhan tv monday

 
I think tomorrow will be a bit of a McLuhan day in the Theology+Media Culture class. We are going to explore television's roots, technological implications and socio-cultural influence. We are watching Mad Men as a class--a way of watching and thinking theologically together--hopefully it will be fun.

copying

Everything is a Remix Part 3 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.

 

The Monday evening class I am teaching--Creative Process--is causing me to examine and collect my thinking on the whole idea of how creativity works, where ideas come from and how one develops ones own 'creative process.' I have been less than enthralled with the 'it comes out of the air mode' as a stand alone view for a while now--I do think that inspiration comes in flashes, but I think those flashes come because work has and is being done. Fortunately, there are lots of people much brighter than me thinking in this area, so I have lots of stuff to steal (which, of course, is part of the process-one has to be in communion or dialogue with the world in order to create). I have been particularly helped by Kirby Ferguson's Everything is a Remix project. The students are going to start reading Reality Hinger by David Shield's and we are going to livin into Martha Stewart's dictum, Fill the Void, i.e. create the stuff you want to read/see/hear/touch/taste/feel and do that by becoming aware of what already is...and remix it.

theology + media culture

 

So, we are off and running on a new term. I am teaching a couple of classes, two modules online and one on campus. The campus class is Theology and Media Culture and I decided to completely overhaul it--nothing like last minute decisions to stir things up, but I wanted to chart some different territory this time around. The central theme is going to be transmedia entertainment--communication via multiple media platforms and what that does both to content and to us--hopefully it will be interesting enough to get people thinking a little more deeply about these things.