tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post1777408059754509680..comments2024-03-26T11:33:59.219-06:00Comments on Religion in American History: Frequencies and the Aesthetics of SpiritualityPaul Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13881964303772343114noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-81451446330014367092012-05-02T08:23:13.766-06:002012-05-02T08:23:13.766-06:00Great review Mike. I've reviewed your review h...Great review Mike. I've reviewed your review here - <a href="http://irritually.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/is-it-hip-to-be-spiritual/" rel="nofollow">"Is it Hip to be Spiritual"</a>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-9613083667063715622012-05-01T02:17:25.935-06:002012-05-01T02:17:25.935-06:00Mike: That's a good point. I'm sure there&...Mike: That's a good point. I'm sure there's some kind of spectrum here. (I'm remembering Mailer's almost Mad-magazine like "The Hip and the Square" list, 1959: http://books.google.no/books?id=t7KmC7-AHmEC&pg=PA424&lpg=PA424&dq=norman+mailer+advertisements+for+myself+square+hip+%E2%80%9CThe+Hip+and+the+Square%22&source=bl&ots=MoeFVXafoM&sig=vndb9FbA9SgucUUzu3ed3XYbuf4&hl=no&sa=X&ei=qJufT__-H87T4QS0zdnwAg&ved=0CDsQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false ) <br /><br />Still not sure why Wilco launched me into a jeremiad, but it did.Randallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16755286304057000048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-3937426585781468672012-04-30T18:24:54.583-06:002012-04-30T18:24:54.583-06:00Thanks for all of the great feedback, everyone.I h...Thanks for all of the great feedback, everyone.I have to give some credit to DEG because I ran this idea by him and he encouraged me to go through with it.<br /><br />Yvonne, I think different folks wrote for different reaosons. I know a few of the authors and have talked with them about it. Some wanted a chance to think of their research interests from a different perspective. Others thought it would be a fun sort of writing and a change of pace from the usual. I'm sure the social dynamics of academics also played into it at some level. I do think that all of the moves to bracket or locate oneself often cut off any personal or confessional voice in our academic writing, as it should. Perhaps Frequencies provides an outlet for pent up confessions. I'm not sure. Kelly, I look forward to your take on this question.<br /><br />Randall, I see your point about Wilco but I wonder if spirituality isn't sometimes "dadrockers with three-day's growth facial hair." Isn't spirituality both cool and always already passé? We can add Toro y Moi to my list of bands to help balance it out.<br /><br />I think the anonymous pastor summed up my entire point with less words and a more powerful example.<br /><br />And those parody sites were SO much fun to make.Michael J. Altmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17352048990586521566noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-5013180548960101212012-04-30T14:07:41.394-06:002012-04-30T14:07:41.394-06:00The fake websites are brilliant. They illustrate ...The fake websites are brilliant. They illustrate the point. Look a little like Borat's site, with all it's colors, flashing and animated gifs.Randallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16755286304057000048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-90144963291428877372012-04-30T12:05:57.304-06:002012-04-30T12:05:57.304-06:00Very interesting to think that there are pastors o...Very interesting to think that there are pastors out there thinking Freqs is a resource for congregations!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-18898003679875221782012-04-30T11:44:52.052-06:002012-04-30T11:44:52.052-06:00The Frequencies web site is attractive, I guess, b...The Frequencies web site is attractive, I guess, but... it uses a ton of bandwidth and it takes forever to see what the stories are. I'm not an academic; I'm a local pastor trying to find resources for the congregation I serve. This site is clearly not designed to be interesting to lower middle class moms and dads struggling to make a living and raise their kids, much less single parents... it's the sort of thing to which I might point the hip young city folk I know. That's good, it's just not the crowd I'm working with.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-75491979898234147342012-04-30T08:51:44.768-06:002012-04-30T08:51:44.768-06:00I have to dissent on the Wilco business. They'...I have to dissent on the Wilco business. They're about as hip as an NPR totebag or a Starbucks coffee t-shirt. They've become dadrockers with three-day's growth of facial hair. Of course, there is a story about Wilco usually every other week on NPR, so there is a link there. Wilco's charmless, hookless music holds about as much appeal for me as a Reader's Digest condensed book.<br /><br />I think of hip today as having more to do with kitsch weirdness of Glo-fi and the screwed up retro business of Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti http://www.myspace.com/arielpink<br /><br />I'm probably just being a grump though.Randallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16755286304057000048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-88418773651522827292012-04-30T08:36:55.678-06:002012-04-30T08:36:55.678-06:00This is insightful on multiple levels, Michael, so...This is insightful on multiple levels, Michael, so thanks for sharing. I had similar reactions as yours, but for me my fascination with Frequencies was less about aesthetics and more about generations. The kitschy websites you created are not only alternative presentations of Freqs, but presentations circa 1990s web design. All that was missing was a scrolling banner or blinking text. While you're right that Freq's curators and contributors fit within a recent lineage of turn of the century middle-brow spirituality, this attention to chronology is also an observation that the people engaged in Freqs are a new generation of scholars embarking on an endeavor previous generations of scholars have not considered, nor were able to explore. I raise this because while scholars of religion have taken over the blogosphere, they are less prevalent in broader discussions over the skyrocketing importance of digital methods and technologies in humanistic inquiry. (The Journal of Southern Religion is a notable exception here, but my criticism of that fine endeavor is that it vastly underutilizes the digital medium, simply reproducing a traditional journal with all of its limitations on the web.) Freqs, I think, is a powerful call to get religious studies involved in the digital humanities. It makes collaboration, creativity, and aesthetic design just as much a part of scholarly argument, interpretation, and production as the text itself. (I'd note we've been doing this for centuries with the monograph, we just haven't talked about it.) For what the digital humanities ultimately challenges us to consider is that the trappings of "knowledge" the West has been obsessed with since the Enlightenment are features associated not necessarily with knowledge but with the printed word. Digital projects such as Freqs--and hopefully many, many more to come--highlight the role of presentation, visualization, etc. as sites of knowledge production…..a very Foulcaldian genealogy. <br /><br />And no discussion of the academy and hipster culture would be complete without considering Lit Folks are Hip: http://litfolksarehip.tumblr.com/<br /><br />Thanks again, Michael!Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10762487595483265718noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-67291146666024528162012-04-30T08:21:00.377-06:002012-04-30T08:21:00.377-06:00Mike, what do you think about Yvonne's point a...Mike, what do you think about Yvonne's point about the "why" of this kind of practice? I plan on writing about Frequencies once my semester ends to ponder what is at stake in the positioning of the "I" in many of the posts. So, why are folks writing? And more pointedly, why does writing about spirituality lend itself to writing about one's self?Kelly J. Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14328894784072518452noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-82784015108031592862012-04-30T07:51:37.341-06:002012-04-30T07:51:37.341-06:00Very nice review, thanks. But something else is go...Very nice review, thanks. But something else is going on here. I wonder <b>WHY</b> Religion scholars (like myself) <b>MIGHT</b> feel drawn to express ourselves on a "spirituality" blog? It's not as though this is service writing for our profession, nor is it research publishing in any strict sense. Is this about an expression of community, or is it just so that some of us can hang out with the cool kids?Yvonnehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01026789923089919199noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-62875304628983592212012-04-30T04:21:33.258-06:002012-04-30T04:21:33.258-06:00Thanks for the heads up about the links, Anonymous...Thanks for the heads up about the links, Anonymous. I think I've fixed that now.Michael J. Altmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17352048990586521566noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-8420302766491094172012-04-29T21:24:47.920-06:002012-04-29T21:24:47.920-06:00The links are not working.The links are not working.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com