I had some nice conversations today.
At morning fika (coffee break) with the staff, I learned about a Swedish reality TV show, “Tro, Hopp och Kärlek” (faith, hope and love) which seems to be a bachelor/bachelorette-themed objective. (I never saw those either, so I’m just going on the little I know.) However, the twist in this show is that all the featured single people are priests (we say pastors in the USA) in the Church of Sweden. The buzz is that this new season includes the youth director guy who works at the church connected with Johannelund and oversees the program that Anya participates in. If you’d like to meet Daniel, here’s the link.
Another good conversation was with Jim, my former host. As part of my job, I was asked to develop a new course, but because of some pretty technical Swedish, Jim has helped with the development of the language. The course is titled something like “Case Studies in African Exegetical Theology.” The intriguing part is to talk about other epistemologies with someone who actually is interested! I’ll put some quotes related to this conversation at the bottom for those who are crazy enough to be intrigued as well.
In the afternoon, I had my språk cafe (talk time) with Åsa. I brought some chocolate and yogurt covered cashews to enjoy as well. She’s a great help, and I learn a lot. She helps me understand the nuances of Swedish as we walk through my one-page essay. We have some conversation in English as well in order to connect better, as I’m interested in her journey. She left a teaching position at a Swedish university after a clear sense of calling to become a priest. She will soon finish her studies and be ordained. Fortunately, she is assigned to a congregation not too far away, so I’ll be able to keep in contact.
Finally, while I do miss my dishwasher, Anya and I had a good conversation as we washed the dishes together tonight.
With blessings,
Beth
Quotes for those crazy enough to be intrigued:
Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, “The Ethics of Biblical Interpretation: Decentering Biblical Scholarship” in Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 107, No. 1 (Mar., 1988), pp. 3-17.
Scientist epistemologies covertly advocate an a-political reality without assuming responsibility for their political assumptions and interests…
The reconceptualization of biblical studies in rhetorical rather than
scientist terms would provide a research framework not only for integrating historical, archaeological, sociological, literary, and theological approaches as perspectival readings of texts but also for raising ethical-political and religious-theological questions as constitutive of the interpretive process (p. 13).
Fernando F. Segovia, “Criticism in Critical Times: Reflections on Vision and Task” in Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 134, No. 1 (Spring 2015), pp. 6-29.
Segovia was my first “opponent” on my defense committee.
For de Sousa Santos, the theories of the North, be they hegemonic or critical, prove woefully inadequate. It is to the epistemologies of the South, in their struggle for a better world, that one must look. These have as point of departure a form of injustice that grounds and contaminates all others, at work since the inception of modern capitalism—cognitive injustice. This revolves around the belief that there is but one valid form of knowing, modern science, which is advanced as perfect knowledge and is largely the product of the Global North. In the face of such epistemic exclusivism, the epistemologies of the South clamor for new modes of production, new valorization of valid knowledges, and new relations among different forms of knowing (p. 24).
Beth, am I allowed to edit those italicized sentences?
I like Segovia’s. . . Or perhaps I should say, I could actually understand that one. . .