On to the next thing
Well, with the exception of a couple stragglers, my grades are in and I’ve officially wrapped up my first year of teaching. The experience was invaluable, obviously, and even pretty enjoyable—but I can’t say I’m sorry to be done with it for the time being. If I end up teaching again at a small liberal arts school one day, which seems almost inevitable, I’ll have to put special effort into staying active in whatever faculty ‘colloquia’ are going on (even if on topics I find only faintly interesting) and in outside conversations in my own field (even if the travel seems wearisome). Although I’ve done surprisingly well at keeping myself reading and writing over the year, if you want really want to stay agile, there’s really no substitute for regular conversation with other interested folks—and at a small school, where the theology “department” consists in just one or two others, that can be hard to find. My poor girlfriend and one of my housemates have had to deal with more than their fair share of incoherent ranting on whatever I’ve most recently read.
So I begin again at Notre Dame in the fall, the Ph.D. in moral theology. For the most part, I’m really excited to go back. I couldn’t ask for a better faculty—the department is absurdly well-rounded, and their scholarly habits are unimpeachable. Nor does it seem I’ll be wanting for a stimulating group of fellow students. My main anxiety is political: I’m going in with a rather low capacity for responding charitably to challenges from the right, and that’s undoubtedly most of what I’ll be getting. (I’m extremely grateful to have missed the whole Obama fiaso. Even the 36 hours I spent there the other weekend were enough to drive me slightly insane.) But for that, I’m sure coping mechanisms will eventually be found.
It looks, moreover, like I’ll be embarrassingly wealthy while I’m there. I’m even buying a house! If I go through on my thought to make doctrines of property and poverty one of my areas of research, that’s going to get uncomfortable very quickly. For now, it’s just kind of relieving—especially since it will make it possible to seriously chip away at the $45k of student loans that are weighing me down.
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As the housemate who got to hear those rants, I have to say I didn’t exactly consider them a burden. Given that I’m working in a mall, hearing even semi-intelligible theological rants was a very, very good thing.
Also, I’m glad you’ll be made uncomfortable. May you never be content.
Moral theology? I would have guessed systematics. Any particular reason why you chose moral theology?
Glad to hear you’ll be closer again. We gotta get together! I’ll listen to your rants anytime.
Ethics has always been the point for me, really, even though I’ve spent the last couple of years reacting against the tendency (my own) to measure the value of every idea by its practical payoff. I’ll still be wanting to do ethics in a historical mode, in part because “moral” and “systematic” theology simply aren’t distinct for the fathers and the medievals—which seems right to me, as I think it does to most folks these days.
Can’t I hope for even a little comfort, Alicia?
Kevin—I agree! I’ve actually had some interest in visiting your school lately (I’m quietly eying the library school there), so maybe I can use that as an excuse to come see you and Susan sometime.