emerging scholarship
May 1, 2009
For the past six months I’ve been in the process of re-orienting my Ph.D. program to focus on the church that emerges as a cultural event. In the past few weeks, I’ve been reaching out to scholars who are working on issues related to the emergent movement outside of seminaries (ie. in non-theological terms). I’ve found a few, and I’m looking forward to potential collaborations. (For clarity, I’m in an English department, but work on Bible as Literature, Rhetoric, & Ethnography).
This morning I’m pondering what role cultural scholarship will have within the emergent church? What role, if any, will such criticism have as EV reorganizes after #EVDC09?We’re obviously concerned with the theological implications of the emergence, and vice versa, but how will we integrate the critique and assessment that comes from scholarly considerations of groups as cultural movements?
I’m also wondering how to study something with which I also identify. Of course this happens all the time; queer scholarship is an apt example. Nevertheless, part of the critics job–at least I’ve always thought it be–is to work objectively. I’m quickly coming to recognize that one of the first things I’ll have to do in my dissertation is disband with my own objectivity and somehow carve out a critical space for myself on terms that don’t require the cool distance of the scholar observing.
So I open the question to you: how will/does cultural criticism sit within the emergent community? What are its limits? What are its benefits? Dangers?
(Also, if you are, or know of someone who works on the emergent movement in non-theological terms–church history, rhetoric, anthropology–please send them my way!)
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