Democratizing theological studies?

This weekend, I spent some time reading Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza's Democratizing Biblical Studies: Toward an Emancipatory Educational Space (WJK, 2009). And I should start with two disclaimers: first, I haven't finished the book yet -- I've worked my way through the theoretical sections, but I won't get to the final (pedagogical) chapter until this coming weekend. Second, I have a ton of respect for Schüssler Fiorenza, particularly for the significance her ideas and publications have played in feminist theological studies. But I was surprised by my own reaction as I read the early chapters of this book; namely, that I alternated between being bored and being troubled by her notion of "democracy" as a key value for education in biblical studies (both as a paradigm itself -- one which focuses on equality, freedom, and the well-being of all creation as we engage the study of texts -- and also as a marker for the plurality [or "republic," to use her term] of interpretive paradigms for biblical studies, which, for her, all have equal footing).

I'm aware that I could attribute my reaction to my own former and current academic homes (so that what she proposes as "new" for some places in theological education may already be familiar in my settings), or to my own discipline (contextual theology vs. biblical studies), or just to the way I'm wired. None of which are particularly interesting topics for this blog, I'm sure. And I also recognize that I could be misreading her work, particularly since I haven't even finished the book yet. But since we're in the world of blogs, and not academic book reviews (thanks, Glenn!), I'll post my preliminary thoughts here.

I was really fascinated by her subtitle: "toward an emancipatory educational space" -- that's why I brought this book home with me. But, after reading the first 125 pages, I'm not convinced -- I can't help but wonder about the relationship between democracy and emancipatory space, and whether democracy in the classroom is really something we want to aim for, particularly as we imagine new possibilities and potentialities for graduate theological education. At the most basic level, I hate to imagine learning or intellectual exploration or deconstruction/reconstruction to be processes that demand an appeal to the a common denominator (or experience, or value, or social location, etc.). But more than this, I think I'm seeking a more complex descriptor or image for the fantastic interplay of power, ideas, energy, goals, questions, struggle, engagement, chaos, and unsettledness that emerge in a lively classroom (or, in any real relationship, imho).

This became concrete for me today as I found myself in a situation where I was reminded that I do not yet have tenure. This serves as one out of hundreds of other examples that the classroom (as currently constructed) is by no means a democratic (or "equal" and "free") space. Students have power over me, I have power over them, they have power over each other -- and this power shifts and changes with situation and time. Some of this is embedded in formal status, roles, and title (e.g., tenure); some comes from perceived expertise, life experience, personality, social conditioning, or markers of privilege. Negotiating power (including my own) is much of what I do when I teach. So, for example, I spend a lot of energy and am invested in dismantling my own status as the "expert" in the classroom, at least in some moments, but I try not to do that in ways that abandon my responsibilities to my students, to my institution, to my subject matter, and to myself. But negotiating power, to me, seems very different from trying to create a level playing field or even everything out. Imagining that we might all peacefully and equally co-exist in a classroom space, or that our learning can somehow be based in our commonality (rather than, or in spite of, our differences), without this sort of active attention to power and other potentially dangerous and painful negotiations -- these images frighten me, and seem like they would steal energy away from the authentic possibility space of teaching and learning.

And so I'm left wondering -- what is it that creates emancipatory educational spaces? Am I reading too much (or too little) into this image of equality? And if we reject democracy and equality as our model, are we worse off than if we strive for it?

Placing the past

Another quote has been in my head this week, this time from author/poet Wendell Berry, from his essay The Specialization of Words, in the volume Standing by Words: Essays.

The better known part of the quote is this: The past is our definition. We may strive, with good reason, to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it, but we will escape it only by adding something better to it (p. 14).

Reading the paragraph that leads into that quote, we see a bit more of his own context and concerns: Contemporaneity, in the sense of being "up with the times," is of no value. Wakefulness to experience -- as well as to instruction and example -- is another matter. But what we call the modern world is not necessarily, and not often, the real world, and there is no virtue in being up-to-date in it. It is a false world, based upon economies and values and desires that are fantastical -- a world in which millions of people have lost any idea of the materials, the disciplines, the restraints, and the work necessary to support human life, and have thus become dangerous to their own lives and to the possibility of life. The job now is to get back to that perennial and substantial world in which we really do live, in which the foundations of our life will be visible to us, and in which we can accept our responsibilities again within the conditions of necessity and mystery (pp. 13-14).

And then a bit later, immediately before the first quote: Our past is not merely something to depart from; it is to commune with, to speak with (p. 14).

Berry had some very specific issues and concerns in mind here, of course, but these words and images speak to my current explorations as well. As I think about journeying, in all the various ways this blog will explore, it is somewhat easier for me to imagine living into questions as I look ahead, and more challenging to think about how to do so as I look backwards. How do we -- as individuals, or communities, or institutions -- attend to the past in ways that recognize its constitutive value (how it forms and informs us) without settling into a rigid sense that it defines us? A quick reading of Berry's first quote, "The past is our definition," could be used to support a static reading of what has come before, as well as a direct link or cause-effect relationship between the "realities" of the past and the possibilities of the future. But his mention of "adding something" to it, as well as the more active image of "to commune with, to speak with," seems to offer a bit more potential. This sort of perspective, along with words like "wakefulness" and "mystery," offers an alternative, one in which the past is just as open as the future, not for fixing or resolving (answering), but for a living process of engagement and exploration -- questioning, not for the sake of interrogation or justification, but rather for and within that sense of mystery and possibility.

An opening quote...

A friend recently reminded me of this quote, which in some ways is the genesis for this blog. I'm not sure I'm comfortable (yet?) with the idea of the someday-answer, but the description of process resonates with me (and not just because it uses the image of books!).

Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Letters to a Young Poet

The importance of questions

I've been realizing, over the past couple of days, that I'm at a place in my career and life where people frequently come for me for answers. They bring questions, but are expecting me to provide information, or make a recommendation, or solve a problem -- in some, to ways "close" the question. And providing answers is surely important in certain ways and times. But for me, answers are a relatively small (and sometimes insignificant) aspect of what is important in life. I'm much more interested in the questions, in living the questions, journeying with the questions, questioning the journey. I'd rather keep developing a question so that it becomes more complex, more significant, and more open, rather than closing it down or resolving it. Questions, to me, often hold more interest and meaning than answers.

Hence my first journey into the blogosphere, as a way to name and create space for questions. And, like with most good questions, I'm not quite sure where this will take me/us. I hope to use this space to explore some of the questions related to a very particular Journey, one that involves the imagination of space for students who themselves are entering a new exploration of questions, in the guise of theological education mediated through academic technology. But, as someone who resists clear boundaries and artificial deliniations, I imagine that the questions and the journey explored in this blog will go far beyond that particular space, wandering most specifically into issues of identity, meaning, perspective, and possibility.

So, if you find me here, I hope you too will bring your questions, not to solve or resolve them, but to open them up, explore them deeply, wrestle with them honestly, and let them guide us into new possibilities.