At Slate, I wrote about Mitt Romney's Senate campaign (see an excerpt below. Also you can listen to piece read aloud (!) via Slate's Daily Spoken edition... the reader's mispronouncement of my name can be forgiven in light of the savior of the republic--Bob Mueller's--own failure to pronounce our shared last name). According to many, [...]
https://www.amazon.com/Everything-Happens-Reason-Other-Loved/dp/0399592067/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1519274687&sr=1-1&keywords=Kate+bowler [I haven’t posted for a while on my reading project… But I’m still reading—more or less on track for the 50 books. More soon (Hi Mom. I know you’re the only one reading this… Mom? Mom?)] Kate— Will you forgive me for addressing this reflection to you directly? I’ve known your scholarship and your [...]
Today in "Exile, Exodus, and Zion," we talked about the rise of Jim Crow and Plessy v. Ferguson. We argued that, as was the case with chattel slavery, Jim Crow--and the legal and extralegal violence that propped it up--were experienced as forms of exile; exile from one's own nation, one's own rights, one's own self. [...]
I was so proud this Sunday. Grace Chapel's associate pastor, Steve Allen, spoke directly to the un-Christ-like language (and more importantly) sentiment that the President of the United States used to disparage refugees and immigrants from countries with majority black and brown peoples (Haiti; Africa; El Salvador). If it wasn't clear enough what he meant, [...]
I had the great pleasure of talking about my "Fundamentalist Christian/Episcopalian/Unitarian/Wiccan upbringing"--and a bit about Race and the Making of the Mormon People-- with April Young Bennett on Exponent II's "Religious Feminism Podcast." In it you'll hear me talk about Jane Manning James--and the power (and problems) of making her the symbol for a more diverse, inclusive [...]
Didion is the most "cosmopolitan" of America's great writers. Throughout The Year of Magical Thinking, Didion is always moving between Manhattan apartments and Malibu beach homes. Through flashbacks to their forty years together, Didion and her husband, who was also her sometimes writing partner, muse, and all-times editor and critic, John Gregory Dunne, are jetting [...]
I'm writing a spiritual memoir (or perhaps it's more a series of articles of faith; a 60,000-word theological position paper). I hope that I have something interesting to say. I hope can say it in an interesting way. I've started this work here and there. Of course, such a project is not new. In fact, [...]
