Next Leg of the Journey

These are, indeed, unprecedented modern times. And I say "unprecedented modern" because surely in human history were there pandemics that stretched through large swathes of the known world. I suppose it demonstrates how far technology has come that a global virus that afflicts, causes suffering and death, to many around the world is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Vaccines are under development less than a year from when the virus first emerged. And despite the confounding levels of idiocy we have witnessed, from the sheer selfishness and arrogance of "anti-maskers" to the denial of medical facts by those in power across the world, we have also witnessed stunning acts of courage from the medical frontliners to those who keep pushing for justice, fairness, and righteousness. Despair and hope, idiocy and courage, these are everywhere in our time and day. The inauguration of Joe Biden doesn't necessarily mean that despair and idiocy are consigned to the garbage can of history.

In any case, since the beginning of the pandemic in early 2020, I have witnessed many of my friends in religious and theological studies being laid off from their work. As it turns out, many Christian universities have been sustaining unsustainable budgets, and Covid-19 only made the unsustainable even more so. First on the chopping block are usually humanities departments, and first on the humanities chopping blocks are either languages or religious studies. I should note that these are not friends who have lightweight qualifications. In fact, they're the opposite. These are people whose CVs easily outshine mine. Their doctoral advisors are those who write books that are required reading in our intro classes. They're on first-name bases with the giants of our disciplines. They've published (or are on the way to) being published with Oxford or Cambridge University Presses. They got their Ph.D.s from places I got rejected from. They won prestigious scholarships that I've received rejection letters from. Some of them have book contracts signed - I'm still trying to put my proposal together, and it's not for some high-falutin' university press! Safe to say, objectively greater scholars than yours truly exist out there.
 

2020 was a liminal year for me. Leading up to it, like most folks in the academy, I have applied to I-lost-count-how-many jobs and academic positions. Only a few responded to me, with a curt "thanks for applying." About 5 have responded with interview requests. One made it to the last round! The disembodied "they" say that we should not take it personally. But "their" heads are made of air. Maybe I can take a CV less personally, but how can a teaching statement not be personal? How can I write a cover letter without at least putting myself on paper? With each rejection letter came about a week of wondering whether my work in theology has been a wild goose chase, a hunt for the grey duck in a duck-duck-goose society. Given my previous denial from some prestigious fellowships, including one for minority doctoral candidates, I suppose that I was simply not cut out for real-deal theological scholarship. 

 

But in the meantime, I continued my writing, reworking old AAR presentations for publication, since the list of those is quite substantial. I worked on the book proposal that now refuses to be done. In the meantime, I resourced my other masters degree - in economics - and helped my brothers' investment firm. I continued to preach regularly at my church in New York City. As strange as liminality was for me, it was formative. I learned to develop my voice. I learned to think carefully about what my scholarship means for me and for my neighbors. I had time to map out my research agenda. I took apart my dissertation and rethought it. (It's right now looking like a 2-book project.)

Back in March 2020, a job posting appeared on the AAR website for a school I had not heard of. It was for a one-year visiting position. I waited for a few days, wondering it would be worth my while to apply, but then I went ahead, thinking that even for a year-long position, it'd be a good teaching experience. To my great surprise, I was invited to interview in late June. I figured I wouldn't make it to the final round, but instead of being given a Zoom link for a final-round interview, I was given the visiting position. Hence, for the 2020-2021 academic year, I will be Visiting Assistant Professor of Theology and Ethics at Greensboro College. I entered the interview process skeptical about the position, but came out of it hoping that I could be a part of the community. I'm grateful for that chance to contribute to an institution on the borderlands of academic influence and power. 

 

I tried not to get myself too involved in a one-year visiting position. I didn't want to become too attached and be sad to leave. So I tried to focus on the negatives. The WiFi's not working well. The office A/C is loud, and it has an odd lobby that's shared with another small office. My apartment's a dorm. Oh, and all those are true. But I was expecting admin. to be as evil as everybody in academia says they are. I was expecting charged egomaniac politics among the faculty. But sacré bleu! My colleagues are amazing human beings! Even the admin. - our endowment grew during the pandemic? Yes, the A/C is loud, but it keeps the office cool in the heat of summer. And I'm really liking that odd lobby. And I've valued the students who may not know how to string sentences, but by God, they're trying their damnest to string it, and when some of them turn in a decent essay at the end of the semester, stupid Microsoft Word won't let me put a nice, chocolate-foil "A" on their papers. I co-taught an honors seminar - a Great Texts course - with a professor in the English department whose book on Dante and the Eucharist was gifted to the pope a few months ago. Because it was a Zoom course, I think I enjoyed it more than the students. What I'm saying is, oh no - I might've become attached. I might actually like it here.

 

My apartment's a dorm, though. Oh well.

The visiting position was extended by a year, and so I was happy that I could get to be involved for yet another academic year. But in March 2021, things changed. Long admin story short, my position has been converted into a non-visiting position. Hence, I will be assistant professor of theology and ethics at Greensboro College. Loud A/C and odd lobby included. (I had the opportunity to move to an office without an odd lobby, but dang it, I like the odd lobby.) WiFi hopefully upgraded in the summer.

With that came perhaps what I did not expect to be hard - leaving home for a new home. To be fair, Greensboro started feeling like a home. I know some of the major roads, where the Harris Teeter's is, and that Bojangle's is really something. I have a home under construction so that my family can visit and have space, since housing is... relatively cheap compared to New Jersey or California but thanks Apple and Coronavirus for making houses more expensive than when I started in mid-2020! But to pack up my apartment in Princeton, to move things, was more emotionally difficult than I thought. Some of the highs and lows in my master's and doctoral programs happened while I was writing in my apartment's study room. My apartment hosted two of my nieces' first birthdays. It was when my youngest brother was stranded thanks to Covid (and border shutdowns) that I received notice that I will be on the faculty at Greensboro. And yeah, all the rejections above were mailed to my Princeton apartment. 

Over the next weeks, I'll be preoccupied with the minutiae of moving stuff. It won't be until December when my feet are planted and I can really rest (after grading hell) and maybe finish that book proposal that refuses to be finished.  However, I should end on this note. To have a teaching position in the world of theological academia is a privilege, and I will name that privilege. No amount of adjuncting gives you a voice at the table. Having a position - especially a tenure-track position, places the scholar at the center of theological-academic power, even if it may not be appreciated by the university administration. I say this knowing that many voices I respect hold these positions and also hold strongly to theologies of liberation. Yet, theologians of liberation are rarely liberators, but speak of liberation. I do not subscribe to the idealism of how writing liberation is liberation. My hope at Greensboro for the forthcoming year is to give students a few tools that can form them towards being thinking citizens who are unafraid to dare greater justice and goodness for themselves, their community, and for humanity. If even one or two of them rise to the occasion and become my teachers, that alone justifies the value of my brief teaching sojourn.