Beautiful Theology

OK, here’s what I have in mind.

At the outset, I will post an entry with some of my ideas, with an image or reference to one of the texts that provides background for the seminar, and anyone who wants can pursue a conversation about it in the comments. Since some people have expressed active interest in the topic, I’d entirely open to posting contributions from other people, though for a variety of administrative reasons I’d prefer to manage that by your emailing contributions which I then post (with attribution, of course). The short summary of “variety of reasons” can fairly be summarized as “my greater interest in controlling certain aspects of the seminar than in just seeing what happens if we throw the doors open.” The latter is a worthy project, but it’s not the one I’m most interested in at the moment.

No one is required to read the texts we’re discussing, although the whole endeavor will benefit from familiarity with those texts. I’ll strongly recommend that newcomers to the project begin reading from the beginning, since the seminar will probably develop along the lines of an extended conversation. That doesn’t mean that no one may ever join in midstream, but the discussion may be more intelligible if one has a perspective on the whole.

I’ll add to our reading list, or take it in unforeseen digressions directions in response to the flow of our interaction, but for starters I expect to move from Magritte to McCloud and Tufte, with perhaps some side trips into Kristeva, Irigaray, and Wittgenstein, and then meandering around Questions of Evidence and any other provocations I (we) elect. Although this subject involves ideas I’ve been writing about for nigh onto fifteen years now, it would be a conflict of interests for me to presuppose participants’ acquaintance with my books and articles; I won’t require them, and I’ll try not to treat their arguments as axiomatically true.

No homework, no credit, only the value we put on having stretched toward a lively, enlivening discussion. Which, if I’m right, should be a much more compelling goal than any other.

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