Reading Time: 5 minutes As a body scholar and feminist, I hunger for ways to explore and inhabit our bodies that are not bound by shame, and Sonya Renee Taylor’s book delivers exactly that.
shame
Posted inCulture, General, Sex & Gender
If American Belly Dancers Protested Colonialism As Much As Our Dance’s Sexualization…
Reading Time: 5 minutes If you’ve ever chatted with a belly dancer from the U.S., you’ve probably heard some riff on the phrase, “It’s not sexual, it’s sensual.” Americans dancers have done a lot of activist work here…so what might the dance scene look like if we took on colonialism, too?
Posted inParenting & Family, Religion
What Kind of Parent Would Your Faith Make?
Reading Time: 6 minutes We are not fallen angels but emerging beings. —Bishop Spong I’ve been trying for a while to boil down my chief objections to the faith of my youth, and I think I’ve settled on the metaphor that best sums it up. I’ve decided my greatest problem with the Christian faith isn’t its avoidance of responsibility […]
Posted inUncategorized
The Worst Parent Ever
Reading Time: 4 minutes Are you a parent? If you are, then I’d like you to try a thought experiment. Imagine that your 4-year-old child struts up to you and proudly hands you a colorful drawing of, well…you’re not entirely sure WHAT it is. Then she tells you that it’s a drawing of her and you, neither of whom […]
Posted inReligion
Catholicism scholar: ‘Religion has done more harm than good’
Reading Time: 4 minutes In the Harvard Divinity Bulletin article, renowned religion scholar Robert Orsi has penned a damning indictment of the Catholic Church that, though dense, is well worth reading. Here’s a summary.
Posted inReligion
Christian Lies: We’re So BRAVE For Being Christian!
Reading Time: 9 minutes Oh my gosh, y’all, who in the world are these brave warriors? Who are these people willing to risk such stakes just to make sure that everyone hears for the zillionth time about a fictional character we already knew about? They’re just so, I dunno, DIFFERENT, y’all! We’ve never seen brave people before willing to act this way for their beliefs! Never!
Posted inEducation, General, Myth & Folklore, Sex & Gender
The #MeToo Take Two Panel at #AFSAM19 (Part 1 of 2)
Reading Time: 5 minutes One of the highlights of the recent American Folklore Society meeting was a panel discussing events in #MeToo, what folklorists can specifically contribute to the discussion, and continuing problems with abuse/assault in our field. In what follows, I’ll summarize some of the highlights of the panel on #MeToo (labeled “Take Two” because we had an […]
Posted inEducation, General
The Intellectual and Emotional Toll of Burn-Out
Reading Time: 5 minutes I’ve been wanting to get back to blogging, truly I have, but this semester has been rough on me not just in terms of time (over) commitment, but also due to the exhaustion of burn-out.
Posted inCulture, General
Trauma Stewardship
Reading Time: 6 minutes As we all know, I like to nerd out about trauma. But sometimes, it hits too close to home, and I need help in continuing to do the work that brings me into contact with trauma (in addition to continuing to, like, be a human in contact with other humans).
Posted inReligion
Bachelorette: Why Luke Crashed Hannah’s Rose Ceremony
Reading Time: 14 minutes Today, let me show you how an authoritarian, complementarian Christian man collided with the concept of consent–and what happened afterward.