Volume I, Dossier 2 (Spring 2006) • Contents
The Poetics of the Sacred and the Politics of Scholarship
Introduction to the Dossier
Teresa BERGER, Coordinator
Mary McClintock FULKERSON, co-editor
Articles
LIving at the Edge of a Broken Heart
Richard "Muz" ANSANO
Ansano's autobiographical memories of growing up in Curacao, a Dutch holding in the Caribbean, illustrates Ansano's challenge, not only to himself but to his reader, to merge the spiritual and the intellectual in order to forge a path through humanity.
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An AutoBioTheoEthnoGraphy
Teresa BERGER
This AutoBioTheoEthnoGraphy seeks to chart both the movements of the Spirit in a life of faith, and the subject-formation of a diasporic European Catholic feminist theologian. What becomes clear is that the tools of scholarly analysis and narration are not adequate to the display of this "both". The poetics of faith, e.g. of testimony and of prayer, will have to interrupt the scholarly voice, again and again, to create space for a claim that remains beyond scholarly categories: Solo Dios basta.
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Becoming Who I Am
A Religio-Spiritual Autobiography in Seven Acts
William HART
"Becoming Who I Am" is an attempt to give a purely naturalistic account of the place of "spirit" in my life. I refer to the spiritualities of sex, sport, violence, and especially religion. Thus the subtitle: "A Spiritual Auto biography in Seven Acts." Each act deals with an episode in my life that contributed greatly to my spiritual formation and deformation, to the process of becoming who I am. This "spiritual autobiography" is a response to problems of identity that arise from the from the indelible effect that Biblical narratives have had on my life in light of my evidenced-based conviction that humans are natural beings without remainder. As a corollary, I hold that religion is a sublime product of the human imagination that God(s) is our creature and that we have an ethical and political responsibility for how that creature is used.
Narrative of a Nice Southern White Girl
Mary McClintock FULKERSON
"Narrative of a Nice Southern White Girl" narrates the dynamics of being Protestant, white and female in the southern U.S. From its thin, moralist piety, its class vantage, to its racialized and sexualized constraints, this faith tradition can be seen as part of the larger project of Protestant civil religion. The author thinks through what is retrievable in such a piety by arguing that it would be as dangerous to reduce it to its predictable sociological effects as it is to attempt to protect religious faith from the interrogation lenses of social criticism.
Southern Comfort
Susan THORNE
Susan Thorne's essay applies the narrative conventions of social history to a white Southerner's faith journey. Religion figures in her autobiographical reflections as institutional space and social network, as site of community activism and as spiritual encounter with the divine. Her conclusions urge secular progressives to take religious subjectivity more seriously, to develop categories of scholarly analysis that don't foreclose political mobilization.
Entertaining the Unreasonable
Kathy RUDY
This essay struggles through the complicated intersection of depression, anger, and spirituality as experienced by a lesbian trying to find her place in church and in life. I am trying to find, through this personal writing project, a way to talk about the spiritual entities of everyday life. While some might call these experiences psychological, the portrait I try to paint here is one that blurs psychology, God, and entertainment. As an ongoing effort to try to blur the disciplinary boundaries of human life, this essay wants to make sense of things, inside out.
Commentary
The Time of History, the Times of Gods, and the Damnes de la terre
Nelson MALDONADO-TORRES
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