An (Academic) Update
I’ve been incredibly busy, but thought I should throw up an update on some goings-on. First, I’ve been accepted into the University of Nottingham’s PhD theology program to study under Conor Cunningham. I’m currently waiting to hear on my funding applications, which everybody tells me is a really competitive “crap shoot” of sorts, and we should hear by mid-May or so about the status of that. I am also trying to figure out other funding options that do not involve loans (Tiana and I already have too many from our undergrad years still). There is also a really cool Centre of Theology and Philosophy conference that is about to be announced so stay tuned for more on that.
In the meantime I have also applied to Marquette University just in case things at Nottingham don’t pan out. Unfortunately, my GRE scores weren’t the greatest (did even worse the second time I took it–standardized tests seriously f- with my brain), so I have absolutely no idea if they will accept me or not. We will see. They are supposed to inform me sometime around the Ides of March.
Meanwhile I have been working on my Master’s Thesis. I began the writing process this past week and from here on out it is full steam ahead.  At this point I am not going to say too much what it is about (e-mail me if you want, but it’s probably not super interesting to most) but as I think I have mentioned before, here is a list of my thesis reading books if you care to browse.
We’ve had some visitors lately and will have some more soon this next weekend. Last week my brother and his family were in town on their first family vacation since LaRae had Phaedra in June. See here for some extremely cute pics of their daughter Phaedra. And this past weekend Tiana’s friend Jaclyn was in town with her boyfriend and we went out to The Mission for some delicious brunch. And this weekend our friends Johnny & Alyssa and David Overholt will be in town.
Now it is lunchtime for me!
good luck with funding! i actually think I made copies of some forms that went towards your application; because Conor has about the same ability to use technology as a drunk 3 year old with one arm….
the university has some other scholarships to apply for, if you haven’t seen them already let me know and i can give you the links.
depending on how things work out you and i could end up being conor’s first group of phd students; which is exciting, and scary. nothing wrong with being a guinea pig though i guess…
good look on the writing. from the books you have listed seems like you’re cooking up something potentially interesting.
michael o'neill said this on March 10th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
All the best with the funding app, about 3 years ago I had a place at Exeter under Timothy Gorringe which would have been awesome but the bastards at the AHRC refused funding.
Nottingham sounds like exactly the right place for your research (based on your MA bibliography).
Richard said this on March 10th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Great, Eric! I am truly excited for you. I will await witrh anticipation concerning your funding. Mucho contratulations!
Dale said this on March 10th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Your reading list certainly looks interesting, I’d love to hear about what you’re doing. I don’t have your email address, but you’ll have mine once I post this comment.
I’m toying around with trying to tie some concepts together regarding the atonement in dialogue with Marion’s writing about saturated phenomena, Arendt’s concept of natality, Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus in John 3, the concepts of recapitulation and Christus Victor in the ancient Fathers, and the apophatic tradition (with maybe a little Deleuze thrown in, though I’m probably already bordering on trying to do too much). Current working title is “Apophatic Communion: Phenomenology, Mystical Theology, and Atonement”. Of course, this is all contingent on being approved for the topic, as I haven’t even started the program yet (hopefully this fall, pending finding out about funding).
Jason Barr said this on March 11th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Eric,
Michael’s pointed me to your site - I also study at Nottingham. If you’re intending to send out an email on what the MA is shaping up to be, please do include me. Best of luck with the admittedly crapshoot (true in so many ways) ORS process and hope to see you over here sometime.
jeffrey biebighauser said this on March 12th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Thanks Mike, Richard, and Dale. I am definitely going to be applying to further funding as well, so we’ll see what happens (thanks again Mike for the links to that!).
Jason, yeah, I would definitely suggest staying focused with your topic. Everybody I know who gets into theology and philosophy (including myself) has a tendency to want to make everybody be ‘in conversation’ with everybody and it tends to get out of hand really quick! Stay focused on your topic now and then you can always read and incorporate that other stuff that you’re also interested in later.
Hi Jeff, good to ‘meet’ you. Perhaps we shall meet for real in a few months, then! (along with the rest of the Nottingham students I follow online with blogs outside of Anthony and Aaron whom I’ve already met).
As an aside, I must be such a nerd right now listening to the Hubert Dreyfus iTunesU podcast from his Heidegger class at Berkeley..!
ericaustinlee said this on March 12th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Eric,
you are not a nerd at all for listening to the Dreyfus lectures, I have been listening to those on and off for a few months now! Although he pisses me off in the first one where he calls Badiou ‘useless’ and says he’s not a real philosopher. In general they are quite good, but his commentary on ‘being & time’ is far from the best available. if you are into (or getting into) heidegger be sure to check out work by Graham Harman, he has a really unique, and quite interesting, reading of heidegger than is worth taking seriously.
michael o'neill said this on March 13th, 2008 at 7:56 am
Mike,
Thanks for the Harman suggestion… I hadn’t heard of him. Yeah, I have done a decent amount of reading in Heidegger. A couple semester ago I took a class where we read Heidegger, Levinas, and Derrida. I ended up reading all of Being and Time, much of the Basic Writings, as well as his later “Time and Being” and related things. I read Dreyfus’ commentary and thought it was good, although I actually thought his appendix about Kierkegaard to be more interesting!
If you’re interested, I have the paper that came out of that class on Heidegger et. al. posted in my papers section (linked above). It is on “the Gift” in the movie Stranger than Fiction.
Yeah, I remember his comment about Badiou! hah!
Peace,
Eric
ericaustinlee said this on March 13th, 2008 at 10:44 am
congrats on nottingham! i met conor last fall, nice guy. i’d love to see how the thesis is shaping up as well.
myles said this on March 14th, 2008 at 11:08 am