My daughter turned five years old this week. I am now a five-year-old-mother of one. Big Five <3. I’ve been thinking a lot about the fact that this is the age when children’s brains are developed enough to start creating… Read More ›
Sara Frykenberg
Moments of Beauty by Sara Frykenberg
Last week a friend of mine started a post asking people to share something that they’ve enjoyed or appreciated since shelter-at-home orders began across the country and globe. This friend was in no way trying to minimize the very difficult… Read More ›
Staying Un-Frozen by Sara Frykenberg
It is February 14th, Valentines Day. So, today I want to explore my daughter’s love affair with Frozen; a story that I did not like, but that I learned to love by watching it through her eyes. A story which… Read More ›
Teaching After the Getty Fire by Sara Frykenberg
This is the third year in a row that I will be writing about wildfires in California and their impact on me and my community. This year, I don’t have any poetry. This year, I’m not afraid. This year, I’m… Read More ›
I’m [Not] Batman by Sara Frykenberg
A little tongue-in-cheek, somewhat punchy, somewhat angry reflection for your consideration. Thank you for reading. Ever have trouble speaking your mind? I do. I do, particularly in situations where I was taught (in all sorts of ways, violent and nonviolent… Read More ›
What We Can’t See by Sara Frykenberg
As a professor, I find myself returning to a similar struggle again and again. I know what I know; and I know what I hope students will gain from the class, in terms of content knowledge, critical thinking, classroom community-making,… Read More ›
Just South of Ventura by Sara Frykenberg
For those of us living in Southern California, it has been a tense week to say the least: flames ravaging up and down the coast, homes lost, thousands displaced, freeway and school closures, smoke thick in the air, and ash… Read More ›
You Can’t Debate Mutuality by Sara Frykenberg
I use words like “mutuality,” “listening,” and “love,” here as I discuss my understanding of feminist justice-making and eschew debate…I want to make it abundantly clear: I see these as powerful, often forceful and even angry tools. We listen to what oppressors say so that they cannot deceive with their “alternative facts.” We love forcefully…We counter violence—we do not debate it—with anger, humor, creativity and power, in order to redirect its energies into more mutual possibilities.
New Year and Sustainable Resolution by Sara Frykenberg
At the end of 2016, my foot hurt—my body telling me: it is painful to move forward as you have been. You have to walk differently. Yow have to walk with more support, and sometimes, carrying less weight.
Turning One by Sara Frykenberg
This month I turn one as a mother. My daughter, consequently, is also turning one—a first birthday I am excitedly planning. Specifically, I want to make Hazel a rainbow cake with lots of colored layers and white frosting. I’m not… Read More ›
Breastfeeding and the Abject? by Sara Frykenberg
The trappings of motherhood are all too powerful reminders that, as Catherine Keller reminds us in her book From a Broken Web, mother goddesses have to be continually slain for patriarchal heroes to be born. Indeed, she suggests that conceptions of Western selfhood are based upon this symbolic matricide—so it is no wonder that breast milk might be considered abject…
Feminism and “The Force:” Thinking Through “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” by Sara Frykenberg
Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), on the other hand, works to resist the call of the “light.” The Force Awakens puts emphasis on the villain’s perspective; and my question is, is this because many of us who are in the audience need to see how we are also like this villain?
Violent and Non-Violent Protest by Sara Frykenberg
For those of you who have read my blogs before, you may have gathered that my approach to justice-making is not entirely non-violent. Researching and writing about the movement away from abusive community paradigms in my dissertation, I argue that… Read More ›
“‘A’ is for Adjunct:” National Adjunct Walkout Day #NAWD
On Wednesday February 25th, adjunct faculty across the United States walked out of their classrooms, and hosted teach-ins, lectures, film screenings and rallies, to protest the employment conditions faced by adjunct and all contingent faculty members of colleges and universities…. Read More ›
Reconsidering Faith in the New Semester by Sara Frykenberg
Ironically—though if I’d really thought about it I should have expected this—I have found that my own experiences feeling lost, in-between and more despairingly, halfway, have proved my most useful tools for teaching a class about faith.
Voting Day by Sara Frykenberg
Can we think of the voting place as an altar where we hole-punch a prayer to the honored dead? This past Sunday, Barbara Adinger wrote a beautiful blog entitled “November, a Silent Month?” While welcoming the November darkness and a… Read More ›
Musings on Reification by Sara Frykenberg
The following is a bit of a messy and meandering blog: a kind of a ‘brain train,’ that starts with a question of reification and eating disorders, and moves into a sense of the literal ‘consuming’ nature of oppression. So… Read More ›
A Gift I hope I can give: A Thank you to Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz by Sara Frykenberg
At some point, I finally asked the mentor what her name was and with a smile and joy that I do remember, she said, “I’m Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz.” OH MY GOD/DESS. I was completely taken aback. I really couldn’t believe… Read More ›
On being an imperfect feminist: releasing definitions built in shame By Sara Frykenberg
A few weeks ago, a very interesting and in some places, tense discussion arose from John Erickson’s post, “Hands Off,” some of which related to the difference between what it means to be a liberal feminist and what it means… Read More ›
Taking my body back from… the pill? A call for more of “her stories” about contraception By Sara Frykenberg
I recently made what felt like a very big decision in my life to stop taking the birth control pill… not to try to get pregnant mind you, though some of those I told incorrectly read this as the subtext… Read More ›
A Meditation on a Mantra: Sat-Nam By Sara Frykenberg
The following is a guest post written by Sara Frykenberg, Ph.D., graduate of the women studies in religion program at Claremont Graduate University. Her research considers the way in which process feminist theo/alogies reveal a kind transitory violence present in the liminal space between abusive paradigms and… Read More ›
In my defense against an abusive God… what I forget and what I am learning By Sara Frykenberg
I spent a great deal of my life believing that the smaller and smaller I made myself, the bigger God would be in my life and the more power He (sic) would have to do the good things He had planned. If I could just… Read More ›
What about “the final frontier?” Saying goodbye to the Space Shuttle Program By Sara Frykenberg
The following is a guest post written by Sara Frykenberg, Ph.D., independent scholar and graduate of the Women Studies in Religion program at Claremont Graduate University. “It all started when they messed with Pluto,” my husband joked to me as… Read More ›
Why (I) Work? The Difference Between A House Wife and Being Unemployed By Sara Frykenberg
The following is a guest post written by Sara Frykenberg, Ph.D., independent scholar and graduate of theWomen Studies in Religion program at Claremont Graduate University. Ever since I graduated I have been keenly aware of the fact that am no longer a… Read More ›
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