Author: AKMA

I am often wrong, and about lots of things. I am not an oracle.

For that very reason, I feel all the more investment in the things I get right. About seven years ago, I made the first proposal for what we now call the Disseminary to one possible source of funding. I’ve pitched it to other possible sources of support since then; most of the specifics are identical to what the site now says, based on the proposal for which the Wabash Center granted start-up funding two years ago (Thank you, Lucinda and Paul and Tom!).

Among the things toward which that original proposal pointed were podcasting (not under that name, obviously, but it included downloadable audio files, so I’m claiming a hit) and open-access textbooks. Yesterday, Jimbo “Wikipedia” Wales posted the following over at Lawrence Lessig’s blog: “An open project with dozens of professors adapting and refining a textbook on a particular subject will be a very difficult thing for a proprietary publisher to compete with. The point is: there are a huge number of people who are qualified to write these books, and the tools are being created to leave them to do that.” Again, seven years ago I wrote essentially the same thing.

OK, hold down the applause, that’s not the point. The point is that, with the backing of a serious foundation (or private funder), we could get this kind of thing done in the area of theology, an area that’s particularly fitting for educational philanthropy. What we need is the time to devote to open-source scholarly productivity (yesterday I diverted hours from my workflow to track down copyright-safe images for Theology Cards) and the financial support that will motivate scholars to offer their research and written instruction outside the current print-publishing-prestige-profit complex. It can be done in our disciplines, it will be done in some areas of education. Instead of lagging woefully behind the culture, religious educators could vault ahead of other areas of educational culture (with a little redirection of funding that’ll be expended anyway). Trinity Institute, Episcopal Church Foundation, Lilly, Pew, put some oomph behind online theology and it’ll take off. I said so seven years ago, and I still say so. It would be exhilarating if, seven years from now, we could look back and not see just another missed opportunity.

Margaret and Pippa dropped off. Caffeine coursing through my veins. Groggy.

#37 The Venerable Bede: Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG.

And the Theological Outlines project is coming along rapidly, too; Chapter Seven is done, and we’re working on Chapter Eight in Volume 1, and Volume 2 is all squared away (though not yet online). Ryan’s keeping busily scanning in pages from an early edition of Williston Walker’s History of the Christian Church.

I thought I wouldn’t add anything tonight, but as I was running through my last-call bookmarks, I noticed Jordon’s pointer to Mark Cuban on the music industry. I was explaining all this to Ryan the other day — the industry has chosen exactly the worst approach to the opportunity that the digital transition affords everyone, and at every turn they embed themselves more deeply in their failing business model. Pirates aren’t killing music; executives are.

I’ve had time and access today, but not the attention span to think of something worth saying. I couldn’t think of a clever way of acknowledging Frank’s prior art on photographing the Linnaeus statue; couldn’t think of a way to connect to Chris’s latest marvels; couldn’t think of anything to say about politics or digital identity or the Anglican Communion — all because I wake up tomorrow morning at 4AM to drive my wife and daughter to Midway Airport, where they’ll catch a plane to Manchester, NH, and I won’t see them again for six weeks or so. (Even then, I’ll only spend the weekend before my birthday with Margaret, after which I’ll take Pippa home with me from Durham.)

But here’s a link to the Hilary of Poitiers (#49) cards (it’s starting to get brutally difficult to find images of these characters!): Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG.

What I meant about cheering for Halley and BlogHer was this: I’ve taught for a longish time now, and over the years have taught mostly classes that comprised a roughly even mix of women and men, some classes wherein the population tilted markedly toward the men, and a very few courses that included a preponderance of women. For whatever reason, every one of the classes in the last category worked better than all but the rarest of the mixed and male-dominant classes.

One can attribute this to any sort of factor, especially given the small sample size. For the time being, I’m inclined to think that some combination of biology, social expectations, pedagogical style, learning interests, capacities, temperaments, and subject matter converged in a mixture of which gender made a big difference. When I hear that Halley had a great time at BlogHer, it reminds me of my teaching experience. As I accumulate more varied experiences, I’ll keep my eyes open for instances that vary or reverse my expectations.

Would an all-women conference necessarily go better than a mixed conference? No.
Would an all-women class necessarily go better than a mixed class? No.
Am I surprised to hear how well BlogHer went? No.
Do I think that the gender definition of the conference was irrelevant? No.

If I keep typing, maybe I won’t have to go to the airport. . . .

I’ve been offline almost all day; someone at Adobe suspects someone at Seabury of running a BitTorrent file of Macromedia Studio, so our provider at Northwestern has shut down one block of ports — which included my office. I’m at home right now, changing clothes before going out for the evening with my beloved, in anticipation of her departure this week for parts east. If there’s time before or after, I’ll write a “hear, hear” to Halley’s recent acclamation of the BlogHer conference.

Either way, here’s another card:

50 First-Century Judaism, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

I have a queue that includes the Doctors of the Eastern Church, the Doctors of the Western Church, David, Augustine of Canterbury, Bridget, Patrick, Columba, Bede, Hilary of Poitiers, Eusebius of Nicomedia (not a really good reason for him, but I got most of the way into preparing the card, so I’ll just go ahead and export it), the first four ecumenical councils, Eutychianism and Apollinarianism.

Derek suggests adding Isidore (a gimme, since he’s Patron of the Internet, but also because he provides the name for the hero of one of my favorite Philip K. Dick novels, Confessions of a Crap Artist), Martin of Braga, and Caesarius of Arles, too; I’ll add ’em to the list, Derek, but they’ll have to wait their turn.

Now, I have to go put on some clean clothes for my date tonight. Woo, woo!

Only two new cards today (but I uploaded an emended version of Polycarp):

42 Gregory the Great, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

43 Helen, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

I’ll be backing off the pace for a while; by now, we’ve uploaded most of the cards I use in the introductory course. I’ll upload the rest as they dribble through my attention span.

Yesterday afternoon and evening, the family rolled north to the Chicago Botanic Garden for a picnic dinner and photo opportunity stroll. Our visit started as we heard what we thought was a wedding-reception guitarist playing “Hey, Joe” (“where you goin’ with that gun in your hand?/I shot, I shot my old lady/Found her messin’ round with another man”), which greatly troubled Si and me, though we later discovered that the guitarist in question was just serenading diners at the Garden Cafe.

In the first garden we visited, we discovered a larger-than-lifesize statue of David Weinberger’s hero, Carolus Linnaeus (shown here plucking a rose blossom).

We strolled through grove after garden after glen after nook, delighting in the spectacular expressions of life’s exuberant variety and unimaginable beauty. I’d never been to the Botanic Garden before, but it should stand at the very front of any array of Chicagoland destinations. We didn’t have time or energy to wander the entire grounds, but just the Japanese Garden, the English Walled Garden, the Heritage Garden, and the Rose Garden wore us out. Well, those and the Model Railroad Garden, where we saw a not-to-scale bunny rabbit intruding into the Main Street USA display.

Perhaps best of all, we came away with a nice picture of Si and Laura — and a splendid time was had by all, especially when we finished the evening off with Heath Bar Klondikes at home.

Trevor’s working on a way of refactoring the appearance of the Disseminary — partly ’cause it’s been long enough, partly because we cam up with the old appearance right at the start, and have learned enough to be ready to make some changes, partly because the Moveable Type database that powered the old design melted down last winter and we never rebuilt it.

Trevor sensibly thinks that we ought to solicit feedback for the new design before we implement anything — so, how does it look to you?

Today’s shipment of cards:

39 Polycarp, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

40 Montanus, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

41 Gnosticism, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

I appreciate the positive feedback about the Theology Cards; we have another dozen or so in the works, which will dribble out over the next week, I expect. If you have a request, leave a comment — I can’t make any promises, but if a subject would interest you, then it might well be useful and interesting to my class, or to other non-curricular explorers. I will concenttate my efforts on the years from 100 to 600 (roughly, though I’ll stretch the interval to include some early of the missionary saints of the British Isles); though there be worthy subjects for cards outside that window, I just don’t have the time right now to think about a series of “Continental Reformers” or “Caroline Divines.”

In response to Being Shielded’s request for “an idea flow chart,” I like the idea a lot and will try to work such things up for some major theological concepts. Unfortunately, I got a different really great idea while I was mulling that over, a real Tufte-an idea that I’ve spent hours working on already today.

It goes this way: Part of the job of our introductory course in Early Church History involves helping students develop an awareness of the shape of major theologians’ lives, the connections among them, the chronology and the geography of their careers. It occurred to me to follow a character’s life with a line that changes color as the character ages. So a character’s life-line starts out yellow, modulates to red at 25, to purple at 50, to blue at 75, and to green should he or she live to 100. With that visual device, one can both illustrate a character’s life and travels (“Aha! He’s in Gaul at 25, but he returns to Alexandria in his forties”) and point to synchronisms (“So she was in her fifties during the Council of Chalcedon”).

The catch is that my Photoshop/Illustrator chops aren’t immediately up to the task, so I’m going deeper in the applications at the same time I’m working on illustrating (for instance) Athanasius’s exiles. I hope I can produce a nice, clean one in time to take it to the Tufte seminar that Trevor and I will go to in August.

So, life-lines now; idea flow-charts, next. And, if I can get a handle on the stressors that have interrupted my sleep and productivity, I can wrap up my work on the Winslow Lectures publication project, put together the elements for my semi-plenary at the Catholic Biblical Association meeting next weekend, and help Margaret and Pip get ready for their August trip to the east coast. And resume the Lego Church History illustrations. And finish up my syllabus in time to share it with my Church History colleagues. And rework my study guide for the course. And write the books I’m supposed to have written this summer. Etc.

Latest update on the Theology Cards front (Theological Outlines buffs will have to wait — but aren’t five-plus chapters enough for starters?):

23 Evagrius of Pontus, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

34 Eusebius of Caesarea, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

38 Clement of Rome, Single PDF — Six-Up PDF — JPEG

Phil Windley (Ha! no one thought I even remembered Phil — hi, Phil!) points to a useful argument from Timothy Grayson on the subject of digital identity. It’s the sort of argument I love — he calls attention to the extent to which our frustrations and conflicts over “digital identity” and “privacy” involve conceptual confusions left over from the conditions that prevailed before the advent of digital interaction. The technical problems are aggravated by linguistic confusion.

Three cheers for that good catch! The difficulty arises when you try to attend not only to the changing conditions that require us to redefine our expectations (that’s a tough enough job by itself), but also to the moral intuitions, the social forces that inculcate our sense of identity, and the negotiations by which we mediate these non-personal factors. You can’t just “cahnge the language,” nor should we simply turn the language over to people who assure us they know what they’re doing, even if they’re good guys like Kim Cameron and Dick Hardt and Eric Norlin (well, OK, Eric has that sinister NSA side to him, but you get my point). Our language needs to change and will change, but the right answers for DigID will take when the affordances that the technology offers align with expectations that non-geek citizens are willing to bend in order to enjoy the benefits of comfortable, secure, trustworthy online interactions.