I was up early and putting the last touches on my trial lecture paper, a topic I was given 2 weeks ago: Gender and Intercultural Criticism: The Book of Ruth and African Women. I needed a stronger conclusion to tie in the aspects I covered, but still end with my main point: “The women are the center of the family. If you bless a woman, the entire family will be blessed.”
The lecture was scheduled for 5:15 pm, so I had the morning to tweak, and then spend some time in preparations for tomorrow. After a little lunch of a brown goat cheese sandwich (I do like this cheese), I put on my rain pants over my dress pants (yes, no skirt/dress for me, especially in a windy and rainy city on the North Sea coast), and walked to the bus.
I arrived and did a bit of work in the library. I transitioned to the main building just as Jim and LarsOlov arrived from Sweden. What an honor to have two future colleagues come!
After a bit of time alone with a hard copy to mark up all the African theologians names with pronunciation marks (and a few typos corrected), I was ready to meet the special guests for an early dinner of pizza. Here is my bibliography up close and personal! Dr. Fernando Segovia, from Vanderbuilt, is a recent President of the Society of Biblical Literature! What an honor! He is very kind (I already knew he was brilliant from reading his works). Dr. Madipoane Masenya flew in yesterday from South Africa. She greeted me warmly, as she knows who I am (Knut’s student) from the African Biblical Hermeneutics sessions of the Society of Biblical Literature (geek camp in nice hotels for adults!).
I’m asking friends for some pictures, as I was a bit caught up in protocol and avoided taking pictures. I am a bit intimidated by these world-class biblical scholars. I’m also a bit unsettled at all this spotlight, but at least it is a small spotlight, and I get to share a message that is beyond me that will contribute to intercultural approaches to biblical studies–building bridges across cultures on biblical texts.
My two Maasai project colleagues gathered with me before the lecture, and Hoyce prayed for me. What a gift!
The “Trial Lecture” is meant to be a 45 minute reading of a paper on the topic provided. In theory, it could be rejected, and then the defense doesn’t go on tomorrow, but it is almost a formality if the dissertation is accepted. However, I was glad that it gave me an opportunity to address some of the issues that were identified in my dissertation report in a way that I think sets me up better for tomorrow’s defense–the more challenging aspect.
There were about 15 people there in a fairly large auditorium, so it was fairly comfortable in spite of having a formal protocol. The crazy thing is that I never “lecture” this way–reading prepared notes–in a classroom. With my “student-centered learning” approach, I try to not have more that 15-20 minutes of a presentation with interjections of questions or time for feedback before some active engagement with the students in small groups or with an exercise. So, this is not my style, but it is academia!
It seemed to go well, and there were enough meaningful comments to satisfy. I seemed to have navigated the politics of being a Caucasian American with an assignment to deal with “African Women” in a tricky-to-navigate post-colonial context.
I received word that my lecture had been accepted before I left the campus. Whew! (not really)
I got a ride home from Tina, my former PhD colleague friend. She defended last October, so I learned a bit from her journey.
Vidal had a wonderful dinner of stir fry noodles, and I told him that I’m not going to want to leave with his wonderful cooking! We had a great conversation over dinner, and I learned about the close relationship of the Salvation Army with the Norwegian Lutheran Church. It was wonderful to hear of this ecumenical spirit.
I’m going to read a bit to review some bits of my dissertation, some hermeneutical philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer, and some notes I prepared for the defense tomorrow! I hope I sleep well.
With blessings (and those who were at my trial lecture tonight know more about the deep meaning this has for me),
Beth