ABOUT
Hi there!
Welcome to my blog. It's still a work in progress, so I apologize if it's a little rough around the edges. Over the next few weeks and months, I'll populate this with posts and thoughts to kickstart some conversations about faith and culture, and we'll see where it goes.
I'm currently studying a Masters in English Literature in the UK, and will start a PhD later this year, Lord willing. Academia, perhaps especially the humanities, can be an ivory tower that seems aloof and exclusive, only making a splash when a controversial rock has been thrown into the water.
Everyone, academic or not, engages with culture. Maybe you're a cinema buff, or maybe you just binge whatever's on Netflix. Perhaps you're thumbing your way through the great classics of literature, or perhaps you're speed-listening through whatever's hot on Audible. We all listen, read and watch. We all, then, have something to say about it, some perspective about what the purpose of art and culture is - and we should all have a seat at the table, not just the academics.
Why?
My theory is that the only stories we find worth listening to and talking about are the ones that communicate something true about the human experience. That sounds pretty abstract and broad, so I'll give a few (oversimplified) examples:
- We cry whilst watching Finding Nemo (2003) because it's about the reconciliation of a father and son. We're built for relationships and long to see these restored, so this resonates with us.
- We're gripped by an Agatha Christie novel because we, like Hercule Poirot, are desperate for justice and for truth to have its day (that's also why No Country for Old Men (2007) is jarring and unsatisfying).
- Shakespeare's Macbeth is endlessly adapted (and studied in schools) because it taps into something profound about what it means to be human: we are all capable of becoming monstrous.