CrossCurrents
2009 - 2010 Groups
The First Sunset: Interdisciplinary Conversations on the
Biblical Creation Stories
Students often enter university courses with presuppositions
informed by their religious heritage. The academic study of the
Bible, biology, philosophy, and many other topics can present
challenges for such students. Our group will provide an opportunity
for conversation that includes participants from a variety of
disciplinary backgrounds including biology, philosophy, theology,
and Biblical studies, as well as a variety of religious beliefs or
lack thereof. It will also provide biology faculty with exposure to
academic perspectives on the creation stories in Genesis,
addressing both historical critical and theological issues, in a
way that may be useful as they seek to help students whose
religious questions might stand in the way of their fully engaging
aspects of the academic study of biology.
Titles:
- The Lost World Of Genesis 1, by John H. Walton
- The Priestly Vision of Genesis 1, by Mark S.
Smith
- Beyond the God Delusion: How Radical Theology Harmonizes
Science and Religion, by Richard Grigg
Faculty Participants:
James McGrath, Travis Ryan, Chris Hess, Marva Meadows, Carmen
Salsbury, Stuart Glennan, Brent Hege, and Brad Matthies.
The Body in Art / Body and Art
The body has become an increasingly significant concept in
recent years. It is more and more experienced as a changing
and changeable entity, subject to transformative artistic, medical
and technological practices such as tattooing, cosmetic surgery,
prosthetics, and life extension technologies, for example. Our
group will read books offering a theoretical reflection on the use
of the body in art.
Titles:
- Extreme Bodies: The Use and Abuse of the Body in Art,
by Francesca Alfano Miglietti
- Posthuman Bodies, edited by Judith M. Halberstam and
Ira Livingston
- Body Art / Performing the Subject, by Amelia
Jones
Faculty Participants:
Elizabeth Mix, Susan McGuire, Sholeh Shahrokhi, Gabriela Muniz,
and Sylvie Vanbaelen.
Representing Difference: Class, Race, and Sexuality
In coordination with the launch of the new Gender, Women and
Sexuality Studies major and planned visits by three nationally
renowned authors to campus this semester, this reading group is
dedicated to examining the representation of identities of
difference. Analyzing contemporary constructions of
difference in a variety of media and from a number of intersecting
critical frames such as class, race, sexuality, and gender, we hope
to gain valuable insights into the politics of representations and
embodied experiences of difference.
Titles:
- They Must Be Represented: The Politics of Documentary,
by Paula Rabinowitz
- In A Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural
Lives, by Judith Halberstam
- Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times,
by Jasbir Puar
Faculty Participants:
Terry Carney, Elise Edwards, Betsy Erbaugh, Lee Garver, Terri
Jett, Allison Harthcock, Elizabeth Mix, Sholeh Shahrokhi, Ann
Savage, Ageeth Sluis, Brynnar Swenson, Kristin Swenson, and Vivian
Deno.