Author: AKMA

Our son Nate — who first appeared in these digital pages as he prepared to begin his undergraduate studies at Eastman School of Music — will this afternoon defend his doctoral dissertation (US)/thesis (UK) at the University of Michigan. The work in question bears the title “Open Coding OK Computer: Categorization and Characterization of Disruptive Harmonic and Rhythmic Events in Rock Music”, and it concerns the composition of Radiohead’s musical oeuvre. He defends at 12:30 EDT/5:30 BST, and although we’re unwaveringly confident of him, we reserve the right to be a little heart-in-throat-y about the outcome (if only because we’re so proud of him and can’t stand the idea that anyone on his committee might give him a hard time). If you’re in the Ann Arbor area and feel like dropping in, the defense will be held in the West Conference Room, Rackham School of Graduate Studies.
 
But honestly, it should be a doddle. What a year!
 

I just finished a long response to colleagues on a subcommittee of a task force of a working group of a project of a Cabinet, which in the normal course of events would go unseen except by a dozen other people. Rather than consign the response to oblivion, I thought I’d drop it here (edited in places, to make it more general); I’ll put the bulk of the letter in a “Continue Reading” link, leaving just the first paragraph above the figurative fold.
 

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In response to the materials you sent: I note particular emphasis on two points: One, the perception that we can arrive at definitive interpretations of the Bible, such that we have them sorted; and two, the perception that a hermeneutical gap separates the academy and the pew.

 
Continue reading “Interpretation, Finality, Church, Academy — Again”

Back a long time ago, when the Web was a much smaller place, I had the opportunity to ask Stewart Butterfield (one of the founders of Flickr) whether my photos would be safe with Flickr in the aftermath of the Yahoo takeover. He assured me that as long as he had anything to say about it, Flickr would put its users first and would (for instance) keep linked-to photos visible even if, for instance, the account owner died, or left Flickr.
 
That was, of course, a long time ago, before Stewart left Yahoo/Flickr. And businesses change direction; they can’t be trammelled by previous executives’ pledges. At the same time, as Mike Arrington notes, Flickr’s current policy of closing access to the accounts of former paying customers is not just a matter of Yahoo’s balance sheet. The perception that Flickr was a web-friendly service underlies a large part of its standing as a good neighbour on the Web. By withholding photos from the Web, Flickr injures both the Web of which it’s supposed to be a pillar and its own reputation.
 
And the warning that it’s time to make sure that you have back-up copies of everything you’ve ever uploaded to Flickr may be increasingly urgent.
 

One of the many reasons I haven’t been blogging for the past few months has been the intensity, and focus, of the home atmosphere while Margaret has been working on her doctoral dissertation ( = UK “thesis”). The pace of her writing has picked up since she arrived in September; as she drew near the end, she was wringing out a truly startling page count week on week. When she submitted the manuscript two weeks ago, the wave of relief and exhaustion overtook both of us and swept us along in a surge of jubilation, anxiety, and accumulated weariness.
 
Yesterday, Margaret defended her dissertation at Duke, and by all accounts it was adjudged a very strong effort. Her advisor said the defence was “great”; another committee member said the dissertation was “terrific”, and I haven’t heard specific comments from the others, but Margaret indicates that they were very favourably disposed. The committee voted that Margaret should be awarded the Ph.D.
 
We believe in ritual and order enough that we don’t accord Margaret a degree that has not yet been awarded; there is, for a few weeks anyway, only one “Dr Adam” in the house. But we do like the sound of “Dr Margaret B Adam”, and we now know that the degree will be awarded at Duke’s graduation in about five weeks. Margaret will graduate in the robes of the father of a family friend, another exciting and tradition-laden aspect of the process. It’s intensely satisfying to come to this point.
 
Margaret actually began working toward this degree more than twenty years ago, indeed almost thirty years ago. Her undergraduate major at Bowdoin College was in Religious Studies, and her grades were markedly better than mine. She audited courses when I was at Yale Divinity School and Duke Graduate School (where she took courses from Mary McClintock Fulkerson and Stan Hauerwas, two of her committee members); she copy-edited Modern Theology for a couple of years, indexed and edited a number of our friends’ books, read papers at AAR meetings, published an essay and short articles, participated in church life and endeavours such as the Ekklesia Project, all the while she home-schooled our children and oversaw our extended household. She returned to academic life as an MTS student at Seabury, and then (at long last) began her doctoral studies at Duke, took time out to teach full-time for two years in one of the strongest undergraduate theology departments in the US, eventually writing her dissertation for a committee of scholars all of whom she had known for more twenty years or more.
 
The White Queen may regularly believe six impossible things before breakfast — but leave it to Margaret to do what seemed impossible, and to do it handily. Hail, Margaret!
 

I ordinarily avoid hyping the various products that clamour for attention and links on this pervasively-commercialised internet (remember way back when, when we used to argue about the ethics of blogging for money, or accepting ad links on one’s pages?). Today, though, I do want to call attention to two books by webby authors with whom I’ve been in digital conversation for nigh on to ten years, now.
 
Monday, the estimable Steve Himmer’s novel The Bee-Loud Glade was officially published; I bought a digital copy right away, and will be pestering bookshops in Glasgow to obtain a printed copy. Steve is not only a dear friend (and former Glasgow resident), but also a subtle and fine observer, and an excellent writer; I’m only a short way into the novel, but I’m enjoying it immensely and am eager to read further.
 
And David Weinberger — a true hero of Web wisdom — wrote a young adult novel a few years ago, about a boy who unexpectedly wins a lottery that he entered illicitly, and how he deals with the secret. I plugged it when he first published it (and kept on plugging), bought about a quarter of the total copies he’s sold and gave them to friends, and to this day I have a copy on my office bookshelf. It’s a well-written kid book, but is especially useful for dealing with moral quandaries in a narrative mode. People who rattle on about teaching ethics to children (or even “who teach undergraduate ethics”) could almost surely improve their programmes by adopting My 100 Million Dollar Secret as a text. Anyway, David has made a Kindle version of the book available for $.99, a real bargain!
 
I hope that a great many readers young and old buy these books and support these authors. These are fine works, written not by the legendary dyspeptic alcoholic misanthrope but by genuinely gracious, gentle, wise authors.
 
(Woohoo! I blogged two days in a row! And I have a feeling I may blog again tomorrow!)

Nothing I will do can top this searing-hot news flash from Somerset.
 
I know, I haven’t blogged in months. If it doesn’t hurt too much, this may make a gradual way back in.

I wanted to post something on 31 January, but it slipped past me — so on the subsequent Friday, I’m putting up this note to commemorate Bloody Friday, when 92 years ago, labourers and sympathisers gathered in George Square to demand the reasonable working hours that contemporary developed nations have come to take for granted. The epithet “bloody” is, thankfully, more an intensifier than a medical description — but as protestors gather in peaceful procession to express their solidarity in holding governments and administrations accountable, we ought not forget that we all benefit from the persistence and endurance of our predecessors. And while concern for public order and safety may motivate some degree of resistance to such demonstrations, we ought not underestimate power’s determination to oppose any change that endangers its own power (indeed, “to oppose change that endangers the expansion of its own power”).
 
How about a Billy Bragg music festival?

Let no one build walls to divide us
Walls of hatred nor walls of stone
Come greet the dawn and stand beside us
We’ll live together or we’ll die alone

Thank you, who have stood up for our interests before us; thank you, sisters and brothers around the world today; thank you, daughters and sons who continue the work we leave undone — from Red Clydeside.

 

The University here is seeking instances of “impact,” by which they seem to mean “when innocent civilians [not students or other academics] show that they’ve noticed and been affected by what you do.” This is a topic about which I don’t usually think, so readers of this blog might be best situated to remind me: Have I (or my works) appeared in public discourse recently? My colleague Werner Jeanrond mentioned that a prominent Swedish ecclesiastical figure had been quoted to the effect that he was reading Werner’s A Theology of Love in preparation for a wedding in the Swedish royal family; that apparently count as an example of “impact.” Once again — granted that no princes or duchesses are keeping up-to-date with the works of an obscure Americo-Hibernian hermeneutician — has somebody alluded to me, or used (for instance) my blog or one of my photos (in a non-academic setting), or otherwise demonstrated my influence on the outside world? When I last asked, I noted the LibriVox project; I might also have cited the Slashdotted “information highwayman” incident. More recent would better, though. And if anyone felt motivated to make a big fuss about me in public (in a non-academic context!), this would be a convenient time.
 

I’m not sure whether there are groundhogs in the UK, so I don’t know whether to tell winter’s duration by a subterranean rodent or a flickering light source. Either way, there are no shadows visible in Glasgow this morning, so I’m hoping this presages an imminent spring.
 
Oh, sorry, I meant to say — Happy Candlemas!
 

This morning, I accepted an invitation to participate in another collection of essays on music and theology. I can’t assume it’ll count toward my REF contribution, so I can’t afford to devote much time to mastering an oeuvre with which I’m not already thoroughly conversant. Now I have to figure out which artists’ work I know well enough, and have something to say about that’s adequately theologically-illuminating, for me to decide on a topic.

My landlord, BAFTA award-nominated filmmaker Andrew Bonner, is crowd-sourcing the project on which he’s currently working. Give a struggling filmmaker a break, and help him finish this feature! Plus, if the crowd-sourcing and the resulting film work out, maybe he won’t want to move back to Glasgow and we can stay in this flat indefinitely. Maybe it’ll be a huge hit, and he’ll show his appreciation for my blog-flogging by awarding us this quiet, modern, wonderful-neighbourhood flat as a friendly gesture. (Well, probably not, but it’s worth a try.)