Monday, May 27, 2013

Freedom as Responsibility: David's Thesis Part 2

Well, the week has flown by.  Here's the second part of our discussion of my thesis, picking up with "the contest for meaning."  Our central question this week is how do we speak our stories and listen to others without simply looking to win?  This is a huge driving question for me.  Our discussion drifts through Idle No More, Butler and Spivak's "Who Speaks the Nation-State?", and the relationships between language, identity, culture and nationhood.  Enjoy.  And please comment!

Freedom as Responsibility Part 2

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Freedom as Responsibility: David's Thesis Part 1

Release fail.  I apologize.  I've been sick and largely incapable of useful thought for the past few days, so the release is late.  Sorry.

This week is the first part of a discussion Dale and I had about my MA thesis.  If you're interested in reading it, let me know, but I will warn you that it is a dense 100 pages of critical theory.  This is the much simpler version.

In my thesis, I explored three wilderness nonfiction books: Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, Peter Gzsowski's The Sacrament, and John and Jean Silverwood's Black Wave.  My question was "what is at stake in these stories that they each operate, at least partially, in an apologetic (explanatory) mode?"  My summary statement was that I was exploring "freedom as responsibility grounded in a recognition of mutual vulnerability and enacted as a contest for meaning."  The project allowed me to work through and articulate a number of ideas I've been wrestling with for the majority of my adult life, as such, it is probably my clearest articulation of the importance of story, the role it plays in our lives, and the importance and meaning of our engagement with it.  This ties back into much that we've discussed so far.

This first part ends with a question about why there must be a contest for meaning.  Part 2 answers next week.  Enjoy.

Freedom as Responsibility: David's Thesis Part 1

If anyone is interested in undertaking the reading of my most significant work thus far, it is available through the UVic Library website, here.

Part of the podcast is here.

Monday, May 13, 2013

Lines: How we travel - how we live

When I go out my door and begin travelling, how do I view what I am doing? I can be starting a journey from point A to point B, or going for a walk, or a drive, or maybe even both. According to Tim Ingold, in his book "Lines: A Brief History", the way in which we view these journeys can correspond to the way in which we view many other aspects of our life, as well as how we live and remember our lives.

In this podcast, David and I tell stories about our own experiences with lines, and present, discuss, and argue about the question of transport versus wayfaring, or put another way, how we conceive of lines, and how that impacts our lives.  We also relate the question to our own lives, and to questions we encounter as Christians, or as simply humans.

So how do you view your daily commute, or your walk to work? And what does this viewpoint tell you about the rest of your life?


This podcast ties in to, and builds on the ideas begun with our podcasts "The Truth about Stories" Part 1 and  Part 2. 

You can listen to this podcast on Spreaker as well at this link.

Friday, May 3, 2013

The Truth About Stories, Part 2

Three weeks ago we started a discussion of how stories impact and interact with our lives, looking particularly at Tom King's book The Truth about Stories. Here is a continuation of this talk, looking at the same situation from a different perspective.  We talk about the power of stories to grab us, to promise us a future, and to disappoint us horribly.  Specifically I talk about the story of the triumphal entry, and the story of the Romanian revolution of 1989. We then ask ourselves what is the story of Christianity, and begin a much larger discussion of God's relationship with stories.