Exploring the F-word in religion at the intersection of scholarship, activism, and community.
She is the firefly
that lights up our nights,
her cherubed face,
and cheeky smile,
laying siege on our living spaces.
Her tiny form occupying,
our basement steps,
as she joyously serenaded us
in an infantile song,
spanglish laced with berber.
Her two energetic companions,
careening from couch
to table, then to floor,
laughing and screaming,
racing feet threading
across laminate floors. Continue reading “Exuberant Noise by Safa Plenty”
As a child, I enjoyed the story of Noah’s Ark. I would often imagine pairs of animals running for safety in Noah’s architecturally majestic haven. Practical questions didn’t enter my mind during this blissful period of naivety. I ignored the part where God expressed regret in creating humanity, or when Noah gets drunk and lies bare naked for his children to cover his shame. My bible study teacher would explain to us that the point of the story was that Noah, a holy man, trusted God and carried out his will.
Disclaimer: I understand that the film is not meant to be an exact representation of the story in the bible, but loosely based around it. Also, if you plan on watching the film, read at your discretion.
In the film, Noah’s character is played by leading actor Russell Crowe, who appears strong, confident, and zealous in his trust in God – all necessary qualities to fulfill God’s demand of killing off the rest of humanity because of their wickedness. Later in the film, Noah realizes that he and his family are also wicked leading to his revelation, ahem, God’s revelation, that humanity must cease with Noah’s family. This doesn’t pan out too well with his children and wife. It was also bad news for Emma Watson, the orphan girl Noah’s family saves and raises as their own, who after accepting that she is barren is miraculously healed and gives birth to two girls. Noah decides that the female infants must die according to God’s will to end humanity. Continue reading “Watching “Noah” Brought Me Closer to Humanity by Andreea Nica”
Ok, so it’s not Antarctica, it’s Indiana, but it sure feels like Antarctica lately.
At least it’s what I figure Antarctica must feel like: bone chilling wind that can cause hypothermia and frost bite in a matter of minutes; everything as far as the eye can see white—sometimes no horizon, or blue sky, or any distinction between the celestial world and ours. Continue reading “A Sojourn in Antartica by Marcia Mount Shoop”
Epistemology—the study or theory of the nature and the ground of knowledge, particularly with respect to the limits and validity of knowledges and the sources of knowledge.
Being—the qualities and characteristics that constitute conscious existence; a living thing.
I look outside the open window of my temporary apartment and read and re-read the sign that beckons drivers to notice this unspectacular place. “Welcome Home” it says in black Times New Roman font on a plain white background. As if saying it so simply, makes it true.
It doesn’t feel much like home to me right now. And thankfully it doesn’t really need to. Soon I will move into a new house. Then I will take the next step in working to make a home in this new place where my family and I have moved. For my husband, kids, and me, the knowledge that the apartment is temporary helps us deal with the strangeness of it. We know it’s not for long. And knowing that helps us behave in certain ways and cultivate particular expectations. This mode of operations allows us to bide our time. We have done just enough settling in to feel ok here—unpacked a suitcase, stocked the refrigerator. But we won’t hang pictures; we won’t be too intentional about meeting the neighbors. Being cordial is enough. After all, this isn’t really home. My nine-year-old daughter has actually made a rule that no one is allowed to call this apartment “home.” Continue reading “Be-pistemology by Marcia Mount Shoop”
“I hope that readers will rethink their consumer choices, monies that have long been offered at the expense of nonhuman animals–overwhelmingly female and exploited because of their female biology. We choose where our money goes, and in the process, we choose whether to boycott cruelty and support change, or melt ambiguously back into the masses.”
Continue reading “Speaking Up for Animals by Grace Yia-Hei Kao”
Neil Gilman in his book Sacred Fragments writes, “Since our faculty of reason is G-d-given, since it is the quality that distinguishes us from the rest of creation, and since all human beings share that same innate faculty, what better way to establish the veracity of a religious tradition than by demonstrating its inherent rationality?” To be fair, Gilman is not the only and definitely not the first to support this position. Many theologians, especially those influenced by various Greek philosophers like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, have said the same thing. In the Roman Catholic tradition, Thomas Aquinas is adamant that rationality is humanity’s imago dei, how we are made in the image of God – what the beginning of Bereshit (Genesis) suggests. Descartes argues, “I think therefore I am.
Patriarchy emphasizes rationality as divinely given over and above other attributes that humans share with non-human life – like instinct, growth and maturity, life and death, memory, caring, empathy, dependence, interconnectedness, relationality, and communication (in all its forms, not just speech). Continue reading “Why a Kippah Reminds Me that Rationality Should Not Be Our Only Imago Dei By Ivy Helman”
“[E]thical interest in nonhuman animals is flourishing.”
To my delight, the New York Times recently chronicled the growing scholarly interest in human/non-human animal interactions in a story entitled “Animal Studies Cross Campus to Lecture Hall.” There are now more than 100 courses in colleges and universities in the burgeoning field of animal studies. At least 40 U.S. law schools now routinely offer courses in animal law. A growing number of formal academic programs, book series, journals, conferences, institutes, and fellowships are also dedicated to (re)examining human-animal relations from a variety of disciplinary perspectives—“art, literature, sociology, anthropology, film, theater, philosophy, [and] religion,” to name a few.
Continue reading “(Non-Human) Animals on the Agenda by Grace Yia-Hei Kao”
Feminism and Religion 