Got back exhausted last night from the Society for Literature, Science and the Arts (SLSA) conference at Notre Dame University. It was an exciting time, and I truly value my association with a forward-thinking, dynamic, wide-open and friendly interdisciplinary organization. Here is a notice from the “Special Events” section of the conference program: “The Feast of St. Francis of Assisi coincides with SLSA13. This is a week-long call to fasting, prayer, and repentence for the sin of anthropogenic climate change. The week’s events will culminate with a public confession of lament held at the foot of the main building on Friday, October 4 (the day of the Feast of St. Francis) from 12:00 to 12:40 p.m. Participants will read a confession of their fears and sin with respect to anthropogenic climate change, mark their foreheads with ash from coal, and call on the University of Notre Dame to adopt a more responsible energy policy. This event is open to all persons regardless of their religious background or commitments.” Believe me, I would have been there confessing and marking my forehead with coal ash, but the panel I was on, that I had organized, went from 11-12:30 on that day, so I just couldn’t be there. I worry sometimes that in my teaching, writing, ranting, etc., that there’s a potential for turning off students/people by too much preaching, maybe making them defensive, angry, or even despairing. I’m quite sure that a number of my FB friends must have hidden me by now. (I don’t want to know who.) But the whole damn planet is changing fast because of what we’ve collectively done, and that change is going to make it harder and harder for us to live here, and that means quite literally that many good people’s lives will be shortened, brutalized, or ended too soon, and that on a massive scale. We can still act, and there’s still reason to hope. But it’s time. And that’s why it’s time for rhetoric on this level. You don’t have to be Catholic or even religious to be told in no uncertain terms that the choices we make have practical, ethical, and moral implications, and they have spiritual implications too. Plus, they had an open bar at the conference gatherings every night! I don’t drink too, too much, but that was something for an academic gathering. When I’m older, and I finally think that I’ve done my work as well as I could, I’ll look back and say that the friends I made at academic conferences, and the communication and intellectual give-and-take that happened there, were among the most meaningful parts of my life. I don’t go to MLA or CCCC, but I do go to ASLE and SLSA, and that has made a difference.
Posted on: Tue, 08 Oct 2013 03:12:12 +0000