Autumnal Abundance


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F.B.

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Bear's Theory of Comics*

This is still very much a work in progress , but this is what I have so far. 1. Comics are neither novels with pictures nor pictures with captions, but something wholly other, a hybrid of text and image with which it is possible to tell stories that can be seen as well as "heard." Theorists have found them so difficult to describe because they (the theorists) are habituated to think in terms only of text (literary critics) or image (art historians). In this respect, comics are analogues of God, more particularly, of the Second Person of the Trinity, who, while by nature divine (the Word), became incarnate, taking on not only flesh, but also (as per the Nicene Creed ) our nature as human beings. 2. Comics are preoccupied with superheroes and superheroines and their battles against evil because there is something in the form itself (word+image) that presupposes this kind of story. Just as God became incarnate so as to save humanity from its sins, so comic book heroes figh...
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Talking Points: Three Cheers for White Men

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1. When white women (see Marie de France and Eleanor of Aquitaine) invented chivalry and courtly love , white men agreed that it was better for knights to spend their time protecting women rather than raping them, and even agreed to write songs for them rather than expecting them to want to have sex with them without being forced. 2. When white men who were celibate (see the canon lawyers and theologians of the twelfth century and thereafter) argued that marriage was a sacrament valid only if both the man and the woman consented , white men exerted themselves to become good husbands rather than expecting women to live as their slaves. 3. When white women (see Christine de Pizan, Mary Wollstonecraft, and the suffragettes) invented feminism , white men supported them (see John Stuart Mill) and even went so far as to vote (because only men could vote at the time) to let them vote, not to mention hiring them as workers and supporting their education. And before you start telling me a...
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Credo ut intelligam

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It is difficult to describe the crisis I have been living through these past several weeks. The drawing by my office door Short version : Don’t call out the Devil if you aren’t ready to bout .  Alternative short version : “Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” —1 Corinthians 1:20 There has been much bitterness. There have been feelings of betrayal. There have been feelings of being lied to while watching people whom I thought were my supporters fall away. Friends warn me about overreacting. At which I overreact. “Academic freedom means nothing if the faculty do not stand up for it.” I believed that. Someone whom I have trusted my entire academic career told me that. I still believe it—but do my colleagues? “Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from insanity.” I heard someone say that recently on his livestream. Someone whom my friends tell me I s...
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“Hail, Mary, full of grace, punch the devil in the face!”

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Once upon a time, there was a man named Theophilus who made a bargain with the devil. Thank God that Our Lady was able to help him! Do you want to know the full story? Listen here ! * The Prayer of Theophilus O miserable wretch that I am, what have I done and what have I wrought?...  Where shall I, unhappy sinner, go, who have denied my Christ and his holy mother ( Christum meum et sanctam eius genitricem ) and have made myself a servant of the devil ( seruum diaboli ) through a chirograph of wicked warrant ( per nefande cautionis chirographum )?  Who, do you think, will be able to pull it away from the hand of the devil, the destroyer, and help me?  Why was it necessary for me to become acquainted with that wicked Hebrew who should be burned?  (For this same Hebrew had been condemned a little while before by law and judge.) Why indeed? For thus are they honored, who forsaking God and the Lord, run to the devil....  Woe ...
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The Work of God*

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