Baylor University Oral History: Rebecca Sharpless Interviews History Professor James W. Vardaman

The Sacred and the Profane?

In poking around on the Internet for more information on my old Baylor history professor James W. Vardaman, I came across Baylor's oral history series, and I found three long interviews there with Professor Vardaman:

"Oral Memoirs of James W. Vardaman: A Series of Interviews Conducted by Rebecca Sharpless, July 15 - October 20, 2003"

In the second interview, Vardaman talks about Marine boot camp, six weeks of hell in which profanity was a good part of every sentence and just one thing was sacred: your mother. The drill sergeants were sadistic and stupid, Vardaman recalled, but they respected that one rule, "Your mother is sacred." Vardaman himself couldn't even let slip that his own mother was a bad cook:

Vardaman: The food [in boot camp] was better than any I'd ever had, but I couldn't say so. My mother was a horrible cook. My grandmother was worse. But, you know, your mother is sacred. You don't play with that. Your mother -- that's a [pure figure] -- [as for] the food -- I always had to say,

"Yeah, my mother was a good cook."

Nobody [back home] would admit that she wasn't [a good cook], but I knew perfectly well that the food I was eating [in the military] was the best I’d ever been given. Wasn't prepared very well most of the time. They didn't know how. They'd stick a person into the cook's slops [to serve the food], and you got it sloshed on your tray, mixed with everything else [and it was still better than my mother's cooking, but I couldn't say so because] . . . . food and your mother, they're one together [or were supposed to be]. These guys would dream about the[ir mom's cooking] -- kid from somewhere in Tennessee, Cauley was his name. Cauley would talk about his mother's fried chicken until I could see it. I just wanted it -- that so bad. I mean, he was a master at describing his mother’s cooking.

But I'll say one thing about [a] mother again, one more thing about [a] mother. Your mother was God. I can see how a Catholic could think of the Virgin Mary as somebody just absolutely fabulous who could protect you; save you, if you please. You never said anything [bad] about the mother.

One day at mail call, one of the drill instructors, the stupid, most stupid of the three, Jadzuk -- what an oaf, a clod. Lord knows where he crawled out of. Somebody must have kicked over a rock. Anyway, he was sailing the mail out to the platoon. Standing in his presence, [you'd see that] he’d find some way to insult you.

"Here, cotton ball. A coal cracker, I see. This is from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Are you a coal cracker?"

"Well, no."

"Yes, you are. I said you were. That's enough."

And then they'd go around this --

"So you're from Chicago. A gangster, huh."

Guy named Orpin, a Greek kid.

"A gangster. What outfit were you with? Pretty Boy Floyd or Al Capone?"

And that's it. You know, they could say anything they wanted to humiliate you. But one day at this mail call -- forgive me for diverging -- this stupid Jadzuk says,

"Oh, who here knows somebody named Daisy? Daisy."

I said, "That's my mother."

It's the only time I was able to get at these people and not be punished. Because, boy, that was your mother, and you had touched on the magic word."

Sharpless: So they didn't give you a hard time because you had a mother named Daisy?

Vardaman: He was going to [get me with the name "Daisy," or so he thought].

Sharpless: He was going to and then --

Vardaman: If it'd been a girlfriend, Lord only knows. But I had the right answer. [Mother.]

The entire three interviews are in this same vein - detailed, funny, simply great! Go and read!

Dr. Michael Livingston: Tribute to Professor James W. Vardaman

Dr. Michael Livingston

I found a wonderful tribute to Professor Vardaman by a man whose life Vardaman changed, and I'm posting some of the tribute below (though the entire tribute can be found at the link):

A Great Teacher is an Earthquake – For Dr Vardaman

Michael Livingston, 2 February 2018

A great teacher is an earthquake . . . . I learned today that Dr James W. Vardaman has passed away.

He was a great teacher.

He was one of my earthquakes.

I . . .  had a number of scholarship offers for college . . . , including one from Baylor University . . . . [W]hen my father and I traveled to Texas for some campus visitations, Baylor happened to be a point between other destinations . . . . [W]e stopped into the visitor center.

It was a Friday, early afternoon. Campus was relatively quiet. The folks who greeted us learned that I wanted to study history, to become a teacher. Phone calls were made, and they suggested I go meet with a history professor who happened to be in his office.

A fault line, though I didn't know it, was forming.

Not long afterward, I found myself alone in the basement of the Tidwell Bible Building, home of the Department of History . . . . Professor Vardaman was grading.

I knocked. He looked up . . . The next hour comes in flashes. We talked of many things. Throughout, he treated me as a peer, as a man. He was, he later admitted, appraising me. In those minutes he found my strengths, my weaknesses, and most importantly, my potential. He knew what I needed, because this is exactly what a great teacher does.

He introduced me around. The world was a blur. He told me I belonged at Baylor. He told me he wanted me to be in his classes. He shook my hand.

I remember walking out to meet my dad, who was sitting on a bench beneath a wide and glorious tree. It was our first campus visit, but I confess to you now that I already knew exactly where I was going to go . . . .  Dr Vardaman, in a few minutes that afternoon, changed my life.

And then he did it again.

A few weeks into my sophomore year, I walked out of Dr Rust's survey course on the modern world and found a familiar face in the hall, waiting for me. I had not yet been able to have Professor Vardaman in class, but he'd apparently been keeping tabs on me. "I want you to come to Europe," he said.

I was, you must understand, a young man from a modest background who could count on one hand the number of times he had crossed the Mississippi. "Europe?"

His great bushy eyebrows nodded. "I run a study abroad program every spring in The Netherlands. I want you to come". . . .

Dollar signs were flashing in my head. Lots of them. If it wasn't for the scholarships I couldn't afford to be at Baylor at all. To add expenses to Europe on top of that? Well . . .

"I don't think I can afford it," I said.

The eyes beneath those eyebrows twinkled. "But if you could afford it then you would go?"

"Sure," I said, thinking he was risking nothing . . . .

A week later he was waiting there again. Same time. Same spot.

"Can we talk?" he asked.

"Sure," I said.

His gaze appraised, seemed satisfied. "You're going to come to Europe with me."

"Dr Vardaman," I said, trying to be gentle on the good soul, "I told you, I just don't think we can afford it. I've got scholarships, but --"

He waved me off. "Oh, I took care of that. I told some people you needed to go and now you have an extra scholarship to help cover it."

"You . . . what?"

"Let's go to my office," he said. "We'll need to talk about the details."

Not waiting for my reply, not waiting for me to retrieve my jaw from the floor, he turned on his heels and headed for the stairway to the basement. I followed him . . . to his office and then across the Atlantic to a semester spent in Maastricht that fundamentally altered my perception of the world and my place within it.

[And now,] James Vardaman has died. For all of us, the earth quakes again.

A good tribute. I need add no more . . . but Livingston does, so go to the link.

Baylor Professor James Vardaman: Memories and Obituary

Professor James W. Vardaman
Photo by Louis Muldrow

I've borrowed, and lightly edited, the following information and official obituary, all of which I believe was originally collected for Baylor University by Lori Fogleman:

"Baylor Mourns Passing of Professor Emeritus of History and Master Teacher James Vardaman" (Baylor Media Communications, Feb. 7, 2018)

Baylor University is mourning the passing of Professor Emeritus of History and Master Teacher James W. Vardaman, Ph.D., who died Jan. 31 in Waco. He was 89.

"Dr. James Vardaman was an iconic figure for thousands of students at Baylor University who were fortunate to take one of his classes in British, French, German, European and world history or journey with him on one of his numerous study abroad trips around the world," said Baylor President Linda A. Livingstone, Ph.D. "Dr. Vardaman was one of the University's most distinguished teachers, attaining the highest designation of Master Teacher. He was brilliant in the classroom, and he highly valued the open hours he spent with his students beyond teaching, which is a hallmark of a Baylor education."

A recent College of Arts and Sciences article stated that, "During his 33-year teaching career at Baylor University, Dr. Vardaman instilled a love of history in thousands of students and in the process he became one of the most beloved faculty members on campus. Many students would echo the sentiments of film director Kevin Reynolds, who recalled his time at Baylor by saying, "It is one of the greatest treasures of my life to be able to say, 'I took history with Jim Vardaman.'"

Many Baylor faculty members and friends have been sharing their remembrances of Dr. Vardaman, among them:

Robert M. Baird, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Master Teacher: "The contributions Jim Vardaman made over the years to the life of Baylor University were so many and diverse that if you had not witnessed it first hand, it would be hard to believe: the architect of Baylor's multifaceted study-abroad-program, shepherding hundreds, maybe thousands, of students over the years in his annual summer Baylor in London Program, the long-time chair of the Beall-Russell lecture committee that by dint of his persuasive persistence brought the likes of Bill Moyers, Edward Said, Carlos Fuentes, and Czeslaw Milosz to Baylor, and in the classroom a Master Teacher. Beyond the classroom he and his wife Betsy entertained countless students at meals in their home, many of these students from foreign countries so in need of the warm hospitality of the Vardamans. We have, indeed, lost a giant in the life of Baylor."

Wallace Daniel, Ph.D., former Baylor history professor and Distinguished University Professor of History, Mercer University: "Jim Vardaman is the very image of Baylor -- totally committed to students, to teaching and to scholarship, firm in his belief that teaching is the noblest of professions and convinced that one must strive to be the best one can be, all the time, every day. He not only expected this of himself, but it was this quality that he expected of his students, and he inspired it in them. In his legendary trips with students abroad, he brought students to the world. As chair of the Beall Russell Lectures for nearly 20 years and the international leaders whom he invited here, he also brought the world to Baylor. In so many ways, his contributions to Baylor and its students are profound."

Babs Baugh of San Antonio, longtime Baylor University supporter and friend of the Vardamans, president of the Eula Mae and John Baugh Foundation: "I never had a class with Dr. James Vardaman, but his impact on my life was profound. I had the privilege of helping him plan many of his travel experiences -- especially with friends going anywhere he wanted to go. They knew that it would be interesting to them because he knew the history of every place and would share that knowledge with us. He often began his lecture for the day by saying to the group, 'I insult your intelligence by telling you this but . . .' No one was ever insulted! With that brilliant mind came little spurts of great humor and the singing of the Marine Corps Hymn – all three verses. This great teacher loved God, Betsy, his country and Baylor University, his sister Ann Miller and his many friends. If you are fortunate enough to be one of the latter group, you will understand why we will miss him so much."

Cullen Smith, B.B.A. (Law) '48, J.D. '50, retired Waco attorney and longtime friend of the Vardamans: "Jim joined the Marine Corps at age 16 toward the end of World War II. The day he received his discharge, he drove to Waco and entered Baylor. Because he had not graduated from high school, he was accepted conditionally. Years later when a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa was established at Baylor, Jim was made a graduate member. Jim was loved by his students. I have attended two dinners honoring him. Students flew in from all over the world, literally, to honor him. On numerous occasions when my wife Ann and I have joined Betsy and Jim at local restaurants, former students of all ages would come up to speak to him. Amazingly, he always remembered them by name. It was obvious they loved him. Jim loved to travel. He led numerous tours to Great Britain, Europe and the Middle East. In cities, we would often have a local professional guide to take us around. I would begin to notice Jim standing on one leg and then the other. Finally he could stand it no longer. He would correct the guide about the facts, one after another. If we had another tour the next day, the first thing the guide wanted to know was if Professor Vardaman was present. I have heard, and I believe it is true, that on one occasion, a member of the British Parliament asked to be temporarily excused during a debate in order to check with Dr. Vardaman at Baylor regarding some facts about English history."

Dr. Vardaman’s obituary was published today (February 7, 2018):

Dr. James W. Vardaman was born on Nov. 26, 1928, in Dallas, Texas, where he grew up as the youngest of five children of Daisy and Ephraim Jeremiah Vardaman. In 1945, at 16 years of age, he enlisted in the U.S. Marines and served in the Philippines as well as on board the Pasadena. His military service provided him an introduction to the wider world, to war and the aftermath of war, to typhoons, to sergeants and their disciplinary techniques, and to fellow enlisted men in the Marines with whom he lived and served. His lifelong regard for friendships made during those years was always specific to the individual. He spoke of fellow Marines warmly by name, state, hometown and pithy remarks that were as fresh in his mind at 89 as they had been when he was 20.

He also maintained lifelong regard for those military and government leaders whose values and vision enabled them to conduct themselves by admirable and lofty standards.

Most importantly at that juncture in his life, military service in World War II gave Dr. Vardaman the door through which he walked into higher education -- the G.I. Bill. He was grateful forever. Being decommissioned at one minute after midnight on March 18, 1949, at a base in Oklahoma, he then drove all night to Waco, Texas, where he enrolled that day, the last day of registration for the spring quarter at Baylor University. As a distinguished scholar and historian later in life, he reflected on occasion that the most significant moment in his life was seeing his name and grade posted on a small piece of paper by a professor’s door in the summer of 1949. He had passed a university course – and was going to be able to become a college student at Baylor.

His intensity for learning and maximizing every day of higher education had begun. Beginning with gratitude for his sister, Ann Miller, who tutored him at Baylor, his love of all things literary and historical grew with each year of extraordinary courses and undergraduate studies. The fine history faculty, particularly Dr. Bruce Thompson, affirmed their student's aptitudes and encouraged him to consider a career as an historian because it would be a perfect fit. It was. He completed Baylor in two years, taking overloads each term. He earned his master’s degree at the University of Minnesota in 1952 and his Ph.D. in British History at Vanderbilt in 1957.

His teaching career included winning the top teaching award at TCU, then earning a special place in the lore of Virginia Military Institute for five years as well as taking wide-ranging opportunities for summer teaching and fellowships, including University of Virginia and University of North Carolina. However, in 1967, when several Baylor professors and Judge McCall contacted him regarding an open position in the history department, there was no question what would be his next step in academe: He was coming "home" to his alma mater. Here he thrived and received many teaching honors. He was named a Master Teacher in 1993 and elected to Phi Beta Kappa, as an alumnus.

He chaired the Beall-Russell Lectures in the Humanities for nine years, bringing to campus distinguished national and international giants, such as Nobel Prize recipient Czeslaw Milosz; the Very Reverend Michael Mayne, dean of Westminster Abbey; A. S. Byatt; Edward Said; Bill Moyers; Robert Haas and many others. He taught in and then directed many international programs for the University, including teaching in Baylor in Vienna and Baylor in London before becoming director of Baylor in the British Isles, a program housed for nearly 20 years within the confines of Westminster Abbey at Westminster School. His international teaching included serving an exchange professor to the Yunnan Nationalities University in Kunming, PRC, in 1984-85 and was followed by a memorable trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway across Russia. He began the semester-long program for Baylor in Maastricht, The Netherlands, in 1995, a program that continues to be a proud feature of Baylor’s international programs and draws students and faculty from across the University. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Dr. Vardaman also led many alumni trips across Europe, to South America, and most notably, of course, back to the British Isles and Ireland. His relationship with former students was a great treasure to him, as were his friends and family. Dr. Vardaman concluded his tenured years at Baylor in 2000 after 33 years of teaching and inspiring students to ground their worldviews within the vast narrative of humankind.

At retirement, Dr. Vardaman built a library to contain about 5,000 of his favorite books. He could be found there many hours a day for the past almost two decades. Drawing on his vast knowledge, he was the perfect reader of the great tomes across all times and spaces, countries and civilizations. He often offered up sober details about historical events and personages to his family and close friends, insights that the most learned scholars could possibly have profited from knowing. (One point among many to remember: the Magna Carta was "sealed," not "signed" by King John at Runnymede.)

In 2017, a professorship in the history department was established in Dr. Vardaman's name. As additional tributes have been lifted to Dr. Vardaman's memory and legacy this week, Michael Livingstone, a former student, has described him as "my earthquake." Another, Dr. Scott Harper, reflected on his professor in terms of the Dylan Thomas poem "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" and speaks for many when he says: "I have never known anyone like Dr. Vardaman who more raged against the dying of the light: the light of enlightenment and education, the light of justice for wrongs committed at every level of society and culture, the light of friendship and love, the light of his own life. He did not go gentle into anything."

I took perhaps only two of Vardaman's courses, but he asked me to serve as his grader for my final year at Baylor, and I not only got to know him well, I kept in touch with him over the years after I left Baylor, and I can honestly say that we were friends. But I never knew so much about him as I now know after reading memories such as these and writings of his own that I found online. I can now say not only that he was a great teacher and a great friend, but also a great man.

Vardaman's Stamp of Approval, and a Sad Farewell to the Man

The Baylor Line

Some six or seven years ago, I sent the Vardamans a poem and an article. The poem was titled "Final Exam," and it was inspired by words of wisdom from Louis-Hector Berlioz that Vardaman loved to quote: "Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils." My poem reads as follows:

Final Exam

If time be better teacher than the rest,
I need an explanation to explain
Precisely why that final taxing test
Should have to cause such overtaxing pain.

That final is a killer, so I'm told --
No student ever makes it out alive.
I'd rather take the test when I get old,
But don't know when my test-date will arrive.

Yet if I only knew the testing place,
I'd try to stay so very far away
So as to never ever show my face
For testing on that very fateful day.

And once that final test date were surpassed,
I'd live because that final test were passed.

So much for my poem, which now appears in my book of collected poems, Radiant Snow. As for the article, it was one I'd composed for the 2011 Global Forum on Civilization and Peace, a yearly forum for which about eleven other articles had likewise been written. All articles were published together under the title Resolution of Conflict in Korea, East Asia and Beyond: Humanistic Approach. My own paper was titled "Points Toward a Culture of Discussion."

Professor Vardaman read the article, and Betsy read the poem. Here is his response to my article - and note his dark allusion to the NoZe Brotherhood, Baylor's satirical social club (to which I might or might not have belonged):

Dear Jeff,

I sit here on a Thursday evening approaching 8 p.m. and hearken back over the years, remembering such warm and fine things about you.

I take pride in you though perhaps I have no right to do so. I'm sure that all of the things that impel you to greatness took place in Salem, Arkansas, long before you appeared on Baylor's campus and in my life.

I'll always recall your intelligence, your wry humor, your hard work, and your sensitivity - despite your allegiance to a dark organization [called the NoZe Brotherhood] which made its home in Elm Mott . . . .

I recall, incidentally, some of the very, very bright people who were your fellow members in that organization. It seems to me it is now in a bit of decline. I hope that is incorrect. Baylor always needed the sharp [intellectual] knife which your group [metaphorically] thrust into the belly of our beloved Baylor. It was always done with love, not malice - I think and hope.

It is hard to believe that you have indeed become a successful Gypsy [Scholar] with your keen mind still intact.

I thank you for your warm words [about my teaching and my character]. I hope I deserve some of them.

I read your article and found it deeply interesting, indeed, in places quite fascinating. It seems to me you have asked the good questions, and you certainly have picked a judicious topic!

And it goes without saying that I agree with your basic thesis. What educated person could disagree with your opinion!

I trust you will be convincing when you deliver your paper at your conference.

It's good that you related Sam Huntington's clash of civilizations - rarely do people talk about his view of culture in a positive way as you do.

I appreciate your allowing me to read your work. It is quite stimulating.

Let me quarrel with one word you use twice in your essay. The word "probing." I think you should look it up. "Probing" is often mistaken for something more than it is. Probing means to explore a bit, not to really come to grips with the issue. The term is often misused. I will expect that you will not misuse it again.

I was very happy to find at least one thing a bit fuzzy in your thinking.

You've done it well. You've paid the price. I know it has not been easy. There's the loneliness, sometimes the rejection, sometimes the longing for rich understanding from others that just won't appear when we need it most. It pleases Betsy and me that you have been selected to discourse at this global forum. Hopefully it is more than a stewpot. With you there, I think it will be.

We wish you were at Baylor. Since you are not, it is most rewarding to hear from you.

We care about you and what happens to you and your family always.

Sincerely,

Jim

And Betsy wrote:

Jim is very proud of you, and your sending him a copy of your paper meant a lot to him. When he put it down, the first thing he said was, "Impressive." I think that means you have taken all the final exams you need to take and have passed with flying colors.

As you see, Betsy has responded to my 'Final Exam' poem, wittily connecting its theme to the first word uttered by Professor Vardaman upon reaching the end of my paper: "Impressive."

I could ask no higher evaluation from such an elevated source, and I hope I deserved the praise. I know I'll never hear its like again, leastways not in his voice.

Now, he belongs to the ages . . .

The World has Lost Its Historian: James W. Vardaman

Professor James W. Vardaman

"Book Junkies," Waco's Magazine
Kevin Tankersley

I received word yesterday of Profesor's Vardaman's passing. I hope to put up a better blog post about him soon, when I have more details. The photo above shows him at about 86 years old, and I think the article was published around 2016, so my educated guess puts him at about 88 as his age upon passing.

Vardaman was a great teacher. He came to class without notes and spoke without hesitation for the full 50 minutes of lecture time in profound detail, and answered questions in even more depth.

I've known a lot of historians in my own time as a historian, but I've never met anyone remotely like him - nobody with such breadth and depth and such total recall. His field was British history, but he seemed to know everything. He was the world's historian.

But he wore his knowledge lightly - and more impressive than his memory was his humanity. You might find some of that here.

Clowning Around Cloning Old NoZe Brothers' Relics

The NoZe Brotherhood, an underground satirical organization that I belonged to as a student at Baylor University, appears to be re-energizing, and older members are sending around emails of their own days of glory. Brother Blow NoZe sent around an email describing the glory of an unauthorized "Nose Brotherhood" decal with the original word "Nose" rather than the more postmodern "NoZe":

As you probably remember, the Baylor Book Store sold club decals, and they even had one for the Nose Brotherhood, complete with ancient spelling. I never took one to the cashier and bought it, for obvious reasons. I did swipe one or two and displayed one of them prominently on my hat, which was made out of black poster board. The hat has long since disintegrated, but I've always kept the tattered front part with the decal on it.

See decals in use below:

Decal on Car Window

Decal on Hat Fragment

Anyway, Brother Blow NoZe's remarks raised a question in my mind:

You mean, at a time when Noble NoZe members were being threatened with arrest and expulsion if caught on campus, Baylor University was actually making money off our copyrighted image?

We do have copyright, don't we?

If we don't, we should get it.

But who am I to raise such a question? I can't have been a true NoZe Brother - nobody voted for me.  Or so they all say. But that has also to have been the case with the original Nose Brother. Nobody voted for him, either. Nobody qualified, anyway, for he was (putatively) the first Nose Brother.

Clearly a chicken-and-egg issue . . .

David E. Garland cites John C. Poirier and me . . .

David E. Garland

Baylor University

A few years back, John C. Poirier and I published an article, "Jesus as the Holy One of God: The Healing of the Zavah in Mark 5.24b-34" (pdf) (Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism 8 (2011–12) 151-84), which the scholar David E. Garland drew upon in his book A Theology of Mark's Gospel: Good News about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God (2015). Among other citations and quotes, Garland introduces the following block quote with the words "Hodges and Poirier conclude that Mark"

presents Jesus as the holy one of God - a source of inexhaustible power - and yet approachable even by those in a state of impurity. This suggests that Mark intends to present God as judging according to his mercy rather than his justice (to use the rabbinic terminology). This fits with the interpretation of Mark's portrayal of Jesus' mission as being motivated primarily by the politics of compassion rather than that of purity. This also signifies an increased emphasis in Mark upon the very personal nature of the divine. Destruction no longer occurs automatically when the impure comes near or even into contact with the holy, despite the fact that the impure and the holy remain antithetical forces characterized by their dynamic opposition. From a history-of-religions perspective, this means that in Mark's portrayal of Jesus as the approachable holy one of God, a new relation between the holy and the profane is emerging.

This isn't his only citation and quote from our article, but it's the longest quote. Other citations can be found by the search function in the online book by typing in "Poirier" or "Hodges."

Garland, by the way, is currently serving as the interim president for Baylor University, my old alma mater.

Arna Bontemps Hemenway's Literary Book Debut: Elegy on Kinderklavier

Arna Bontemps Hemenway

Amazon

I'm reading a collection of short stories by Arna Bontemps Hemenway - in fact, the stories comprise his literary debut as a book writer, or even as a "bookwriter," depending on how literally we take the title, Elegy on Kinderklavier (Sarabande Books, July 15, 2014). The man's name, "Arna Bontemps Hemenway" - the middle name "Bontemps," anyway - makes me wonder if he's at least partly a 'good-time' Cajun. No offense intended - I'm a good-time hillbilly, moi.

Anyway, I was curious about trying out his work because he's been praised to the heavens for this book's literary style and because he teaches creative writing at my alma mater, Baylor University, which is perhaps consistent with being "praised to the heavens." Here's a sample I thought interesting since it sparks memories my own experience from a few graduate seminars in which I sat and listened to feminist analysis that seemed intended to challenge men to defend themselves from the critique being directed their way and at the same time seemed intended to undermine any right for men to defend themselves at all, but that was likely all due to my own male-ist insecurities and masculinist assumptions, of which feminism has made me so well aware:

Abrams had assumed Lara was a lesbian mostly because she had a girlfriend, and a face that featured prominent, martial cheekbones. She was writing her thesis on some inherently boring, ultraspecific example of gender politics in government language usage, and her comments in seminar were always throbbing with disgust and carefully curated anger. Abrams hated her. He hated her comments. He hated gender politics in general, and especially her diluted third-wave, recherché feminism which was really, he'd always suspected, just a collection of exceedingly normal personal anxieties. He had no idea what Lara was really like, or where she'd come from. He only really knew that she'd gone to Brown.

This is from the story titled "The IED." Abrams, now on patrol in Iraq, has just stepped on one of these improvised explosive devices, and his life is passing before his eyes even before the coming of the explosion that he knows is coming. I thought the sample interesting in part because I've also sometimes wondered if some sorts of feminism are nothing more than "a collection of exceedingly normal personal anxieties," but also by the fact that scenes of Lara flashed before his mind's eye in his final moments.

As for literary quality, I was unsure at first. I felt that some expressions didn't sound quite right, for example: "word . . . petered out"; "the crowd got up and petered away"; and the dinner petered out." Almost as if written by a non-native speaker. Or have I - living abroad so long - become that stranger? But aside from this occasional weird linguistic experience, the stories drew me into them and grew so much in depth and power that I sometimes felt I were reading David Mitchell's writing, though I wouldn't wish to conflate their respective artistry.

Reading recommended. Highly recommended.

Phillip Jenkins on the end of Middle Eastern Christianity

Mosaic in Hagia Sophia
A Long-Lost Church

Baylor Magazine

Baylor professor Phillip Jenkins, adapting for Baylor Magazine (Winter 2015) an article originally published in Christianity Today, asks "Is this the end for Mideast Christianity?" I excerpt at length here from his answer:

For Christians in the Middle East, 2014 has been a catastrophe, . . . [though Iraqi Christians had] long believed they could maintain a foothold around Mosul, . . . [but] Islamist militants have controlled Mosul since June 10. Even if the total extermination of each and every believer is not the goal, those ancient communities and churches face the prospect of utter ruin . . .

The current battles are part of a lengthy story. Islam gained power over the Middle East in the seventh century, but . . . [Christians] retained . . . [a majority] for more than 500 years. Not until the 14th century did persecution become systematic and violent . . . [but even as] recently as 1914, Christians still made up 10 percent of the whole region from Egypt to Persia (Iran) . . .

Matters changed swiftly during World War I. Massacres and expulsions all but removed the once very large Armenian and Greek communities in Anatolia (now Turkey) . . . Emerging Arab nations also targeted Christians. Iraq's slaughter of Assyrians in 1933 gave lawyer Raphael Lemkin a basis upon which he defined the concept of genocide. The partition of Palestine and subsequent crises in the region massively shrunk other ancient Christian groups. The modern story of the Christian Middle East is one of contraction and collapse . . .

How bad could this get? All local Christians know the answer. They look back at the experience of Jews, who flourished across the region just a century ago but have now vanished from virtually every Mideast nation outside Israel . . . The only Christian community that seems secure is the Copts, perhaps eight million strong, and a solid majority in some of Egypt's southern districts. Even so, after the crisis there of the past two years, the potential remains for imminent civil conflict and Islamist violence . . .

More broadly, these events teach us about the long-term trajectories of Christian history. They show how churches vanish and, more important perhaps, how they survive under the direst of circumstances . . . One lesson emerges strongly: However often we talk of churches dying, they rarely do so without extraordinary external intervention. Churches don't die because their congregations age, their pastors behave scandalously, the range of programs they offer wears thin, or their theology becomes muddled. Churches vanish when they are deliberately and efficiently killed by a determined foe . . .

The Church of the East, the ancestor of the Assyrians and Chaldeans, perfectly illustrates that long survival - and profound current crisis. The disasters of the 14th century reduced that once transcontinental body to a much smaller remnant. That vestige continued within Iraq, Syria, and Anatolia for seven centuries. Throughout that latter period, hard-line Muslim jurists and demagogues competed to invent new humiliations to inflict on Christians: limits on what those believers could wear, the houses they could own, and the horses they could ride. At the worst of times, Christians wore rags to avoid giving any impression of wealth . . . If there was a single penalty that stung more than any, it was losing control of the soundscape. In a Muslim-ruled land, the only public voice of religion was the cry of the muezzin from the minaret; ringing church bells were utterly forbidden . . .

But Christians endured century through century. They maintained their faithful witness while recognizing their severe limits. Through bitter experience, they learned to identify the irreducible core of their faith while setting aside additional practices . . . Critically too, they could support monasteries where spiritual warriors maintained prayer and study. As long as monks prayed and priests said the liturgy, the church was intact, and that situation could last, in theory, until Judgment Day. Surviving monasteries tended to be in remote and highly defensible places, and their fortifications were formidable. Egypt still has such legendary fortresses of prayer, such as St. Antony's monastery and St. Catherine's in Sinai . . .

Some believers hoped that powerful Western churches would send aid, although foreign Protestants in particular could rarely grasp the distinct patterns of local religious practice . . . No less dangerous was the temptation to support secular nationalist parties that promised to govern regardless of faith or denomination. Such alliances were always something of a trap, as they intertwined local churches with dubious regimes, most notoriously the Ba'athists of Iraq or Syria . . .

The church persisted stubbornly until modern times, when new militants emerged to tear it up, root and branch. Believers were killed en masse, leaving survivors to flee the country for a time or altogether. Only at that point did churches cease to function . . . In the darkest years of the Middle Ages, when European Christians fled from barbarian invaders, their obvious refuge was the neighboring monastery. This past summer, that was exactly the course taken by the Christians of northern Iraq to escape the Islamic State . . . [R]emnants of Mosul's Christian community took shelter in the ancient cloisters of Mar Mattai. As the Islamic State has recently demonstrated, the practical logistics of destroying a church are not terribly difficult: You occupy a region militarily, and kill or expel all its inhabitants who practice the offending faith . . .

Over the past thousand years, Christians have repeatedly had to ask: Why would God allow his followers to suffer defeat, subjection, exile, and enslavement? They find some answers in biblical precedent, looking to the Hebrew prophets who saw their own kingdom defeated for lacking faith and betraying the national covenant. Seen in this light, even the worst disasters can be seen as God’s scourge on his sinful people . . . But deeply embedded in . . . Christian thought is the idea of the righteous remnant, the community that survives tribulations only to follow God's commands still more exactly. Perhaps the exile that initially seems a nightmare might form part of this greater plan, as dispossessed believers carry their witness to other lands. You cannot read the Bible without realizing how the Exile and Diaspora experience could powerfully spread faith into distant corners of the world . . .

Far more challenging is the question of why God would permit Christianity in a particular land to vanish altogether. Yes, churches move to new pastures where they might prosper. But what about their homelands? What about churches that are altogether destroyed, no remnant remaining? . . . God may seem silent on occasion. At other times, people simply don't trouble to hear his voice. Those previous cases of church extinctions are dreadful enough, but rarely are they as total as they initially appear . . .

What to us may seem like a definitive act of annihilation seems quite different when located upon a divine timescale. As we are often told, extinction is forever; but humans should be very cautious about using the language of eternity . . . As an example, we might look at the experience of China, which over the past two millennia has remained the world's most populous nation. The story of Chinese Christianity is a recurrent cycle of mighty boom years followed by what seemed like total annihilation at the time, an obliteration so absolute that on each occasion, it was quite clear that the church could never rise again. That cycle has occurred five times to date since the ninth century. On each occasion, the Chinese church has reemerged far more powerful than at its previous peak. Each successive "nevermore" proved to be strictly temporary . . .

Even when institutional churches vanish, believers persist in many different forms. One of the most understudied facts in Christian history is that of crypto-believers, those hidden remnants who hold on to truth while superficially accepting the prevailing regime. As Anatoly Lunacharsky, the frustrated Soviet minister of education, complained in 1928, "Religion is like a nail: The harder you hit it, the deeper it goes into the wood" . . . In Japan, for instance, the brutal destruction of the Catholic Church . . . did not prevent large groups of Kakure Kirishitan ("Hidden Christians") from maintaining the faith underground. In fact, some survived four centuries and a few elderly hang on today. We see the same phenomenon in China and, most relevant to this article, all across the Middle East. In Syria, estimates of the size of the Christian population before the present crisis commonly varied between 5 and 15 percent, with crypto-Christians accounting for much of the difference. Underground belief and practice will be much more difficult under an extreme Islamist regime than under the secular Ba'athists, but "cryptos" have often endured for astonishingly long periods, until gentler times return . . .

Even at this worst of times, Christians survive. But dare we say that, even in an increasingly intolerant Middle East, Christians as a whole are not just remaining but in places actually [growing]? . . . This gets us into sensitive territory. Over the past decade, we have heard amazing claims about new Christian evangelization in Muslim countries, usually accompanied by incredible conversion statistics . . . [S]ome specific accounts are much more believable. David Garrison's recent book, A Wind in the House of Islam, describes the Christian appeal in diverse Muslim societies. Remarkably, Syria offers some of the most convincing examples of this trend. Garrison is a responsible and critical reporter. The problem, though, is that all such activity is clandestine, for fear of arousing persecution . . .

[L]et us adopt a sweeping skepticism and dismiss all such stories. Even so, we are still witnessing a striking upsurge of Christian numbers in some of the most unlikely settings, almost entirely as a result of immigration. Look at Saudi Arabia, a land of 28 million people where Islam is the only permitted religion. Consequently, official sources list the country as 100 percent Muslim, [but] . . . Saudi Arabia is only one of many Middle Eastern countries that have imported millions of poor foreigners to perform menial jobs over the years. Many of those immigrants are African and Asian Christians, including many Filipinos. As they do not officially exist as Christians, they have zero right to practice their faith, even in private. But exist they do. By some estimates, Saudi Arabia's Christian population is about 5 percent of the whole, perhaps 1.5 million . . .

Other Gulf nations are more honest about just how religiously diverse they have become. Christians - mainly guest workers - probably make up 7 percent of the population of the United Arab Emirates, and 10 percent of Bahrain or Kuwait. Those are nations where Christianity scarcely existed . . . No less surprising is Israel. Together with Palestine and the Occupied Territories, the State of Israel now includes thousands of adherents of ancient Christian denominations. Those older churches have fallen sharply in their numbers in the past half-century, but newer Christians have more than replaced them. There are thousands of Global South guest workers. Also, many Russian Christians invoked Jewish ancestry to enter Israel in the 1990s. Some were Orthodox Christians, others Baptists and Pentecostals. Israel’s Russian Christian community today is perhaps 80,000 . . . Israel and Palestine combined have a population of some 10 million, of whom perhaps 5 percent are Christians - Arab, Armenian, Russian, African, and Filipino. Together with the Arab Gulf, these are the region's new and growing centers of Christian belief and practice . . . Not for a second should such signs of growth distract our attention from the dreadful situation facing Christians elsewhere in the Middle East. Individuals are being murdered, raped, enslaved, and turned into refugees, and Western governments have no option but to intervene on their behalf . . .

Armed intervention might actually succeed in crushing the most aggressive jihadi campaigns. In the longer term, Western churches undoubtedly have their role to play in assisting fellow believers, whether in their homelands or in their new diasporas. Even with vigorous activism, though, whether military or humanitarian, it is difficult to imagine the churches of Syria and Iraq returning to the flourishing condition they enjoyed . . . But that is quite different from saying that Christianity as such faces extinction in the region . . . In God's terms, words like strength and weakness can have surprising meanings. We must be very cautious indeed about making statements that claim to understand the goals or directions of history.

This is a theologically articulated article, one expressing hopes more than fears (since God is supposedly working his mysterious way behind the scenes), but I can't see Christian 'guest workers' on the Arabian peninsula having much impact on local Muslims, as I noted before in commenting on this article when it appeared in Christianity Today.

My Kids Wondered How I Looked When I Was Young . . .

. . . so I 'shewed' them my Baylor ID from my senior year. Ah, 1979, that was a different era. No, not B.C., A.D.! I also had to affirm the A.D. date of the photo to my children, for whom this old picture of a young 'Dad' proved a big surprise. I look like a 'wildman'! Anyway . . . from those yesterdays back when I was young.

Hmmm . . . from a closer look, I now see that the ID should have been wiped clean before my kids made this photo of my photo . . .

UPDATE: See what my friend Kevin Kim has to say on this.

Rodney Stark: Statistics on Persecution of Christians

Rodney Stark

Image Borrowed from Brendon Vogt

In an interview by Daniel Philpott with Baylor sociologist of religion Rodney Stark on "Why the World Is Becoming More Violent" (Christianity Today, May 12, 2014), Stark disputes some figures I've also seen bandied about:

Much of what has been written about terrorism and the Middle East simply isn't true. There was the recent, widely publicized claim of 100,000 Christians a year dying for their faith. That's pretty stunning. When I found out how that 100,000 number was calculated, I realized it was absurd. More likely, the number was less than 7,000 a year.

As noted, I'd also heard the hundred-thousand figure claimed (though I learned it as a worldwide figure, not solely for the Middle East), and I had little reason to doubt it, until Stark challenged the statistic. He doesn't explain his reasons (those are in his book, I guess), but since he's generally pro-Christian, I think we can accept his figure. However, he also adds some disturbing news:

The most stunning finding: It had been widely reported by people who were looking at survey data that majorities throughout the Middle East disapproved of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Then I discovered something. The reason that overwhelming majorities disapproved is because they think it was a frame-up done by George W. Bush. Among those who accept that it was committed by Arab terrorists, most of them approve of the 9/11 attacks. That shocked me. Overwhelmingly, people approved to the extent that they rightly understood what happened on 9/11.

Stark wants to avoid attributing the increase in religious violence to an intrinsically violent Islam:

Religious violence isn't something new in the world. Lord knows there were 90 brands of Christianity all busy hating each other not long ago. Tolerance is hard to come by. I hesitate to think there is anything peculiar to the Islamic tradition. There is a problem, to be sure, in that Muhammad butchered people for their irreligion. But the fact is, Christians have killed each other by the millions too.

Yes, there is a problem, to put the case mildly, in that the moral exemplar for Muslims is Muhammad, much as the moral exemplar for Christians is Jesus . . .

C. S. Lewis and His Legacy: A Conversation Among Baylor Professors

Baylor Magazine

For C.S. Lewis fans out there, you'll find an interesting discussion among Baylor University scholars of Lewis's influence upon the concept of a Christian education, a perennial theme at Baylor, for I clearly recall Baylor President Abner V. McCall giving a talk on precisely that topic during Freshman orientation week way back in 1975! If I recall, he gave the illustration of water boiling in a saucepan on a stove, and that there were two possible answers to the query as to why the water was boiling, a scientific answer (because the heat imparted by an electrical coil under the pan was heating the water molecules and thereby causing them to jostle each other at ever greater rates) and a teleological answer (because I'm making coffee), and that the latter answer was a matter related to queries on the meaning of the universe. (No, the meaning's not coffee, though that does come pretty close!) Fresh from the Ozarks at the time, I wasn't accustomed to drawing such sharp distinctions in a word's meaning, but I found that concrete analogy so clarifying that I've retained it all these years . . .

Anyway, the discussion in this issue of Baylor Magazine is an excellent introduction to themes in Christian education as understood by several Baylor professors (nine, in fact), whose dialogue is found in the Winter 2014 issue. One of the professors, David L. Jeffrey (Distinguished Professor of Literature and Humanities), noted the current-day profound ignorance about Christianity even on the part of Christian students:

One of the challenges for Christian universities today might be the relatively low order of hold that many of our students have on their own culture. I would say in particular their own religious culture. They come in often better educated perhaps in some technical ways than they were 20 years ago, but I suspect more poorly educated as Christians than they were 20 years ago and most certainly than 30 years ago. By that I mean that biblical Christians tend not to know the Bible very well. Liturgical Christians tend not to have attended church enough to really understand what the liturgy is intended to do. And almost all of them lack a sense of their tradition in the largest sense, Christian history in the largest sense. So, among us, Christian identity that has intellectual substance is not maybe what it ought to be, and that is a challenge.

I've noticed some of these same things, and the superficial understanding of Christianity is evident in the lyrics of the so-called 'praise' songs. They're often fun to sing but say very little. Another Baylor professor, Alan Jacobs (Distinguished Professor of Humanities), notes the lack of rigorous education in many university students:

What I find myself thinking about as we have this conversation is a character in one of Lewis' novels. In That Hideous Strength, one of the two central characters is Mark Studdock. There's a passage about a third of the way into the book in which Lewis describes Mark's extreme vulnerability to manipulation -- he pauses in the action and says, "It must be remembered that Mark had at his fingertips scarcely a scrap of genuine learning. The severities of a traditional humanistic education and a rigorous scientific education alike had passed him by. He didn't have either one. And, therefore, he was utterly vulnerable to rhetorical manipulation, as he just didn't have the intellectual equipment." It's interesting that the two words that Lewis uses are "severities" and "rigor." Those are interesting words. What Lewis is saying very clearly, is that if Mark had had either one, if he had had either a first-rate scientific education or a first-rate humanistic education, he would have been equipped to offer at least some resistance. But he had nothing. He always did well in "essays and general papers" -- if he had the opportunity to bloviate he could sound good, you know? But that was really all there was to it. He was, Lewis says, a "hollow" man.

Not to be disparaging of our students, but we need to remember how little they know when they get here and how few "rigors" and "severities" that they have undergone, in order that we may educate them more rigorously, but also to be compassionate towards them and realize that they are not going to be able to catch up overnight. It's going to require a lot of patience from us to get them up to speed in these matters. But we do well to think of our students as being in many ways like Mark Studdock, beset on all sides by rhetoric from television, movies, the Internet, even the books they read; they are getting buffeted by this stuff and they don't necessarily have what it takes to stand up straight in a gale like that. That's how I think of our job in a lot of ways.

Interesting, this characterization of the character Mark Studdock, for I've worked in an allusion to Lewis's novel That Hideous Strength in my novella, The Bottomless Bottle of Beer, and the anonymous protagonist of my tale is partly reminiscent of Lewis's Studdock. I didn't exactly model my main character after Lewis's, but I did think of him as I described the profound ignorance of my protagonist. Here's the outright allusion made in my novella, a scene in which a lawyer named Dan Webster assists the main character by agreeing to take him on as a client and thus looks over a contract that the protagonist had signed with a certain "Mr. Em":

He leaned over the table and perused the document. "Hmm . . . spirit for spirit. Yes, it's typical of Old Scratch to play loose with words. That's his hideous strength, but also his grave weakness."

The direct reference is clearly to Lewis's novel, but behind that lies David Lyndsay's poem of 1555, Ane Dialog betwix Experience and ane Courteour of the Miserabyll Estait of the World, which contains this couplet, "The shadow of that hyddeous strength, sax myle and more it is of length," which refers to the Tower of Babel and hence all that this image entails about the power of instrumental knowledge and the intellectual poverty of linguistic confusion.

Anyway, I'd like to have been part of that Baylor conversation, but I'm not, of course, a Baylor scholar, other than in the sense that it's my undergrad alma mater, and that it prepared me well for Berkeley . . .

Chagall: Two Left Hands?

The Pinch of Snuff (1912)
Marc Chagall
The Metropolitan Museum of Art

As an undergrad at Baylor University back in the latter 70s, I didn't know much about art, but I somehow acquired a poster of Chagall's Pinch of Snuff (also known as The Rabbi), though I didn't know the title back then. I called it "Rabbi with a Book." I liked it a lot and so taped it to the wall of my room, where I stared at it for hours, all told. There was some uncanny quality it possessed, and I took a long time in realizing what that "it" was. Eventually, however, I was drawn to focus on the rabbi's right hand, which seemed awkward, twisted in some way, until I saw that this right hand was another left hand.

Why?

I know from German that "zwei linke Hände haben" (to have two left hands) means "to be all thumbs," that is, "to be clumsy," but I don't know if this idiom is relevant here.

Incidentally, Chagall seems to have made at least two variants of this painting, for I've seen one of them with my own eyes at the Kunstmuseum in Basel, dated 1923-26, whereas the one above, dated to 1912, is displayed in The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. My poster's version was more like the variant in Basel. The Hebrew letters on the Torah scroll curtain differ, incidentally, the older painting displaying the abbreviation for God's name and the more recent painting displaying letters standing for "Torah Scroll," according to Benjamin Harshav in The Polyphony of Jewish Culture (2007).

Anyway, all the versions I've found online share this same uncanniness because of the two left hands. Does any reader know why Chagall did this?

I've searched long on the net failing to find any clue . . .

Baylor Alumni News and Updates

"Baylor Alumni News and Updates"
Baylor Magazine

In Baylor Magazine's "Baylor Alumni News and Updates" (Fall 2013, p. 62) under '79 (i.e., Class of 1979), appears the following note:

Dr. Horace Jeffery Hodges, BA '79, has published his first novella, The Bottomless Bottle of Beer, a postmodern Faustian morality tale of a young naif who trades his soul to the devil for a bottle of endless beer, but has a change of heart. At about 150 pages, the book includes many illustrations by noted artist Terrance Lindall. Hodges holds two graduate degrees in history from UC Berkeley and lives in Seoul, South Korea with his wife, Sun-Ae Hwang, and their two children, Sa-Rah and En-Uk. He is a professor at Ewha Womans University, a Christian school founded by missionaries in the 19th century, where he teaches composition and research.

I wonder how many classmates from that year even remember me, for I wasn't very sociable, being busy either studying or working when I wasn't in class . . .

Daniel Acosta on Art and Science: The Golden Ratio

My old Baylor friend Daniel Acosta, who double-majored in biology and English literature, now works as a gastroenterologist in Corpus Christi, Texas, where he often muses on art and science and writes about his musings for a "local medical magazine," the Coastal Bend Magazine, in which he some time ago published a piece titled "The Chambered Nautilus," partly inspired through a trip taken by him and his wife to an isolated bed-and-breakfast place in the Texas Hill Country, where he glimpsed a 'miracle':

One morning as I sat on the porch sipping my coffee, something that lay on the fence caught my eye. It was a beautiful fossilized seashell, a chambered nautilus well preserved by Time's loving hands. The owner of the place told me "Oh yeah, I found those laying around here, I guess this place lay under the sea a long time ago." He kindly gave me one as a gift. When I first held the fossil in my hand I tried to contain my joy, as I wanted to blurt out like Everyman in the old English play and say, "This matter is wondrous, precious!" The chambered nautilus has always fascinated me for its immeasurable beauty, its unique blend of mathematical construct and natural artistry. Now I begin to imagine that this fossil represented the most primordial form of the shell, the Ur-Nautilus itself. Here, despite the layers of millions of years that it had sat on this Central Texas soil, one could make out in its primitive form the wonderful logarithmic spiral that is the mathematical basis of the shell's architecture. I took my treasure home and it now sits proudly on my bookshelf at home next to a modern day chambered nautilus.

The logarithmic spiral of the chambered nautilus is of course one of the most exquisite examples of the Golden Ratio. The Golden ratio is that magical irrational number which is the mathematical basis of the logarithmic spiral that we see in seashells, whirlpools, the spiral construct of a pine cone and the phyllotaxic arrangement of leaves in many plants. The number was first discovered by Euclid in 300 BC when he defined how to divide a line into "the mean and extreme ratio." Namely, that "A straight line is said to have been cut in extreme and mean ratio when, as the whole line is to the greater segment, so is the greater segment to the lesser."

A----------------------------------------------C------------------------B

That simply means that the ratio of the line AB to AC is equal to the ratio of AC to CB. The number of this ratio, it turns out is an irrational number with the value of 1.61803 ad infinitum (much like pi is an irrational number of 3.14 ad infinitum). In fact, the Golden Ratio is also called phi (with its corresponding Greek symbol).

The miracle glimpsed was, of course, the spira mirabilis, a fossilized version of the modern-day exemplar that sits on Danny's bookshelf, as depicted in the photo above, which he recently sent me.

I am fortunate to have friends in the sciences with such broad educations as Danny Acosta and, naturally, Pete Hale, both of whom combine art and science in their lives . . .

Science and Humanities . . . Together!

Professor Choe Jae-chun
Photo by Kim Myung-sub
The Korea Herald

Professor Choe Jae-chun, interviewed by Oh Kyu-wook in "An evangelist of science, humanities convergence" (The Korea Herald, August 8, 2013), reminds me why I chose history of science for my graduate degrees:

Choe's talent crosses disciplines. The renowned animal behavior expert, ecologist and bio-sociologist has built a career far beyond the stereotypes of a scientist.

He first came to prominence in 2005 by introducing Korea to the concept of consilience -- linking together principles from different disciplines -- after translating "Consilience: the Unity of Knowledge" (1998) by Edward O. Wilson, the doyen of sociobiology, under whom he studied at Harvard.

Trumpeted as a map to a Theory of Everything, Wilson's magnum opus describes the synthesis of knowledge from different fields and gave a fresh impetus to interdisciplinary studies in Korea's academia in which high walls divided natural, social and human sciences, blocking collaboration and progression.

I'm totally in favor of cross-disciplinary communication, even collaboration when possible, but the risk is that one discipline will attempt to dominate (and guess which one when sociobiology's one of the disciplines!). At its best, however, the cross-disciplinary effort is uplifting:

Choe was named a junior fellow of the Michigan Society of Fellows and taught at the University of Michigan from 1992 to 1994. He said his three years in Michigan were among the best times of his life.

"There were about 12 junior fellows, all with different backgrounds, when I was there. We had lunch together every Wednesday, and every time we discussed different subjects."

"One day we brought up the question of why the middle class exists. We couldn't finish the discussion after lunch and continued it until 2 a.m. the next morning."

He said he realized the importance of integrated studies while discussing more than 200 subjects with his fellow scholars.

"I really miss that time. I wish we could do the same thing here," he said.

Although I never took part in a discussion that lasted fourteen hours, I've often participated in long, wide-ranging conversation on various topics, both as an undergraduate student in Baylor University's Honors Program and as a graduate student in UC Berkeley's History of Science Office, so I know very well what Professor Choe misses.

Sometime, perhaps, Professor Choe Jae-chun can preside over long conversations at Ewha Womans University, where he teaches, and if those conversation take place in English, I would hope to be there among the discussants . . .

An old NoZe friend introduces me to Dr. Boli . . .

Dr. Boli

Dr. Boli's Celebrated Magazine

I recently contacted an old fellow NoZe Brother to congratulate him on his career, see how he's doing otherwise, and update him on my latest activities:

Keko Muckety-Muck . . . or however that goes . . .

You seem to be doing well in your career . . . . Is working for [your current employer] . . . as interesting as working for Nunn, Pfizer, NYC, the White House, or Chrysler Corporation?

I appear to be putting down roots here in South Korea. Still teaching English -- mostly composition (essay and research writing). Still publishing articles on various academic topics. Still editing a lot. Still translating.

In fact, my wife and I have translated a novel by the early 20th-century Korean writer Yi Kwang-su (The Soil) and a collection of stories by the contemporary Korean writer Jang Jeong-il (When Adam's Eyes Opened), both of these [slated] to be published this coming autumn. I should frankly acknowledge that my wife translated. I edited for style . . .

But I've finally done something for myself, written and published a novella illustrated by Terrance Lindall, which you can preview here . . . .

The hard copy is available here, should anyone be interested . . . .

Did you, by the way, ever get around to publishing your own alcohol story about transubstantiation? Have you written anything else -- other than your wounded memoir and all those great speeches?

I soon received a reply:

Ah,

I can see this is extraordinary, even after a mere five-minutes scan of the first pages. I look forward to a full-throated read. Are you familiar with Dr. Boli? Seems a kindred spirit of yours. He too just wrote his first novel, The Crimes of Galahad. And his blog (Celebrated Magazine) is worthy.

Yours in one of the several affordable True Faiths . . .

I somehow hadn't heard of Dr. Boli, so I Googled and located the good doctor's website, Celebrated Magazine. I also ordered his novel, The Crimes of Galahad, which looks worthy as well (else I wouldn't have ordered it). Speaking of Dr. Boli, I liked this recent announcement on his blog:

ANNOUNCEMENT

The Action Committee on the Unjustly Incarcerated has asked us to inform the public that the Committee is no longer calling for all citizens to attend the rally in the Convention Center tomorrow evening. It seems that the Committee was misinformed: there never was any such person as Will Baptist, the words "Free Will Baptist" having an entirely different meaning from the one the Committee had understandably derived from them.

That one somehow brings back old Southern Baptist Baylor NoZe memories . . .

Introducing: Tuomo Lahdelma

Professor Tuomo Lahdelma
Pécsi Tudományegyetem

I have done work over the past two years with BK 21 -- which stands for "Brain Korea Twenty-First Century," a governmental program offering grants to universities to assist graduate students in developing scholarly skills -- and a few days ago, BK 21 asked me if I could introduce the Finnish scholar shown above, Professor Tuomo Lahdelma, at a talk he was scheduled to give. I said yes, and that talk took place yesterday. I therefore had to find out a bit about him, which proved to be quite simple since the kind BK 21 folk sent along his CV. Although the image above shows Professor Lahdelma lecturing in Hungary, he holds a professorship in Finland, at the University of Jyväskylä. Here is what I said in presenting the man:

Hello, I am Professor Hodges, and I have been asked to offer a few words by way of introduction.

Finland is well known to Koreans as a country whose native language is one of Europe's few non-Indo-European tongues and whose high school students rank even higher on the PISA test than Korean high school students themselves do!

Today, we are graced by the presence of Professor Tuomo Lahdelma, a professor at the University of Jyväskylä, in Finland. He is also the president of the International Association for Hungarian Studies.

Professor Lahdelma has an MA in Finnish Language and World Literature and three degrees in Hungarian Language and Literature: a Licentiate of Arts, a Doctor of Philosophy, and a Docent of Hungarian Literature.

Professor Lahdelma has been a visiting professor on a DAAD Fellowship in Germany at the University of Hamburg and a visiting Socrates Lecturer at several European universities.

Moreover, Professor Lahdelma has been the recipient of several honors and awards, including a János Lotz Medal, a Pro Cultura Hungarica award, and a Balassi Sword Literary Prize, and he is a Knight, First Class, of the Order of the Lion of Finland and a Commander, First Class, of the Hungarian Order of Merit.

I am honored to invite Professor Lahdelma to the podium, and I know that you will give him your full attention, for he will surely have words of knowledge and wisdom to impart.

Professor Tuomo Lahdelma . . .

Those were my words of introduction, the first time that I've done this since I was an undergraduate student in Baylor University's Honors Program, when I had to introduce a speaker at one of the Honors Program's special seminars.

I think that I handled this more recent one a bit more professionally . . .

A Career to Dream Of . . .

Ray Perryman

Baylor Magazine

I recall this one-time Baylor professor for reasons obvious to those familiar with my personal story. My mother's maiden name was "Perryman," and the Perrymans tended to be smart people. My mother, in fact, scored at "gifted" level on some IQ test or other back in the 1960s . . . for whatever that's worth. Ray Perryman seems to have scored as an upper outlier on such tests as well:

When he left rural Lindale, Texas, after graduating high school, Ray Perryman was a National Merit Scholar, the first in his family to attend college and the first male to finish high school. By the time his first exam as a Baylor freshman was graded, Perryman had a job offer to become a college professor. Longtime economics department chair Jim Truitt gave Perryman his first test.

"A day or so later Dr. Truitt asked me to come to his office, and I didn't think that was good. I thought he was telling me I needed to go back to East Texas and work in the oil field pipe factory," recalls Perryman. "But he said, 'It'll probably take you four years to graduate, four years to get your Ph.D. At that time, I think I can pay about X number of dollars. What do you think?' Basically he offered me a job after my first economics test. That led me to think I might want to consider a career in economics and math." (Lane Murphy, "Ray Perryman," Baylor Magazine, Fall 2012, page 50)

That sort of thing doesn't happen very often, and I didn't know the story at the time that I was at Baylor, but I remember seeing the Perryman name in the school newspaper about the time that I was getting ready to graduate, around 1978 or 1979 (when he had started teaching at Baylor), and wondering if there was a connection to my mother's family -- and I even considered going to the man's office and introducing myself -- but the chances were slim, I figured, and I let the time slip by . . .

Now, I see that he's even been a nominee for the Nobel Prize in Economics -- what a career!

Table Talk: Homesickness?

Kaye Blegvad, Artist
New York Times

Susan J. Matt, a professor of history at Weber State University (Ogden, Utah), but writing an op-ed for the NYT (March 21, 2012), tells of how "The New Globalist Is Homesick":

In nearly a decade's research into the emotions and experiences of immigrants and migrants, I've discovered that many people who leave home in search of better prospects end up feeling displaced and depressed.

This might not seem especially surprising, for everyone has experienced homesickness, but a statistic provided by Professor Matt did catch my eye, namely, that "20 to 40 percent of all immigrants to the United States ultimately return to their native lands"! Migrants returning doesn't surprise me, but immigrants? Surprising. Even more surprising was the shift in attitudes about admitting to homesickness:

In the 19th century, Americans . . . admitted that mobility was emotionally taxing . . . . Stories of the devastating effects of homesickness were common . . . . Today, explicit discussions of homesickness are rare, for the emotion is typically regarded as an embarrassing impediment to individual progress and prosperity.

Think about that. Those tough men and women of the 19th century gave voice to their emotions. I'd always imagined them stoical, but we contemporary folk seem more closed-mouth about our feelings than they were . . . with respect to homesickness, anyway.

I'm also silent about feeling homesick, but that's because I don't feel any homesickness at all, despite my many years abroad -- indeed, probably because of them. I'm used to being away from home. My only adult case of homesickness occurred during my first year at Baylor University, way back in 1975 to 1976, when I was still adjusting to life in the 'big' city of Waco, Texas and powerfully missing the Arkansas Ozarks.

In Korea, by contrast, I feel no homesickness at all. Neither voluble nor stoical about any putative homesickness, I am perfectly satisfied, even happy here.

There must be something wrong with me . . .