Professor Kim READ FIRST: Why Dorothy Kim Hates Me , The Color of the House of the Lord It’s back to class for those of us who teach in medieval studies, and my medievalist colleague Dorothy Kim , Assistant Professor of English at Vassar College ( pictured in 2014 ), wants to make sure you understand the stakes . The medieval western European Christian past is being weaponized by white supremacist/white nationalist/KKK/nazi extremist groups who also frequently happen to be college students. That does sound bad. But, wait, it gets worse! Don’t think western European medieval studies is exceptional.... ISIS/ISIL also weaponizes the idea of the pure medieval Islamic past in their recruiting rhetoric for young male Muslims. If the medieval past (globally) is being weaponized for the aims of extreme, violent supremacist groups, what are you doing, medievalists, in your classrooms? Because you are the authorities teaching medieval subjects in the classroom, you are, in fact, ide
I miss the good old days. You remember. Back when the only thing people knew about the Middle Ages is that they were Dark and filled with evil barons wresting a living off the back of their serfs, not to mention lecherous clergy imprisoning young maidens so as to rape them and then accuse them of witchcraft. You remember, right? What it was like when the Middle Ages were Dark? The Roman Catholic Church made slaves of everyone, stripped them of their sense of dignity and independence and made social status a matter not of achievement, but birth. The Church hated science and industry and did everything in its power to keep people in chains. It guarded its authority with the sword and the stake, stifled all innovation, and fed the common people lies. And why were these Ages so Dark? There were no universities, no towns, only castles with dungeons. Monks huddled in their cells thinking dark thoughts about sin, while Vikings stormed across the countryside, raping and pillaging and ca
It's possible that I may be trying to do too much. I finished the draft of chapter 3 a little under two weeks ago, a week or two before (back in January) I had thought I would, after which I launched myself into reading Richard of St. Laurent's 840-page (ed. A. Borgnet, 1898) tome on the praises of the Virgin Mary . In Latin. I've read long books in Latin before, but never, I have to confess, one quite this long. The Latin is fairly easy, but even so, by the end of my Brief, Regular Sessions for the day, my head is quite figuratively spinning. And I mean that literally. Sort of.* But I want to finish reading the book as soon as I can so that I can get back to writing again. Before it gets too late. Before I run out of time and my leave comes to an end. (Still six months away, but the pages are flying off the calendar....) I would read faster if I could. Thanks to all the work I've done the past two years on my translation, mirabile dictu , my Latin se
Here be dragons. And doves. Human beings long for transcendence. Such longing is, for the world, always out of fashion because, of course, it is not a longing for the world, and the world knows it. We know what the world wants. The world—by which we mean Satan, the Lord of the World—wants above all our obedience, a jewel so precious that he will do anything to get it: lie, steal, murder, bear false witness, pretend to social standing, pretend to insider knowledge to get us to consent to his influence. “God lied to you. You will not die.” And suddenly we are anxious about having other people dislike us, about losing prestige in our social circles, about other people being more popular or influential or successful, about other people having secret knowledge, about our own influence and fame. “You shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” And with that temptation, our first parents fell. The irony is cosmic. There they were in the Garden, privy to conversation with God face-to-face, and
I have been struggling for some time with whether and how to write this post, but not writing it is making me feel weak, so, following Our Father Jordan’s advice, I’m going to say it. Jordan Peterson is a heretic . His Orthodox friend Jonathan Pageau would say all of us Latin Christians are heretics, of course . The question is whether it matters. It does. My burden is to help you see why. I know from the Facebook groups I belong to that many of his followers take Jordan as a kind of spiritual advisor, some would say guru . They spend thread after thread discussing how to live out his sayings. Which would be fine. If not for the fact that some of his sayings go directly contrary to the tradition in which he purports to be speaking. I know, I fell for it, too . In Jordan’s powerful words : Don’t underestimate the power of your speech! Now, Western culture is phallogocentric. Let’s say it... It is predicated on the idea of the Logos. The Logos is the sacred element
.....And to think that I was only to express an "Happy Quinquagesima Day!!" to you....
ReplyDelete