sustain:if:able kiwi

I’m a serious scholar :)

I’m a serious scholar. I realised this yesterday as the copyright and contract paperwork arrived for my work on U2 (the evolving live performance of Bullet the Blue Sky). 6,000 words, 66 footnotes due to be published with Scarecrow Press next year.

And I’m checking the mail everyday at the moment, waiting for my authors copy of The Bible in/of Popular culture, with my work on Kiwi cartoon, Brotown.

And this week I’ve had some really encouraging feedback on a 1500 word piece I submitted to Australian Leadership on young adult spirituality, with a focus on comedian John Sarfran and video art in the Blake Prize.

I’m a serious scholar. I study cartoons and comedians and rock stars and video art! My mum and my employer must be so proud 🙂 🙂

new book release: Bible in/and Popular culture: a creative encounter

I have a book chapter in a new release, out this month. Titled The Bible in/and Popular culture: a creative encounter, it is an exploration of how the Bible reads pop.culture – and how pop.culture reads the Bible. (Available for purchase on Amazon or SBL). Given that pop.culture is the world that most of us now swim, it’s (IMHO) a pretty important area to be researching and writing in.

A lot of writing has done on the Bible and film. This book charts a different path and focuses on areas including the Bible and other popular media like hip-hop, graphic novels, animated TV cartoons, apocalyptic fantasy. Mine is a chapter on Bro-town, an animated TV cartoon, set in Pacifica urban culture. The title is “Reading “pop-wise”: the very fine art of “making do” when reading the Bible in bro’Town.”

Updated: By request, here is the full list of contributors
Introduction by Elaine M. Wainwright

Some Novel Remarks about Popular Culture and Religion: Salman Rushdie and the Adaptation of Sacred Texts by Michael J. Gilmour

Red Dirt God: Divine Silence and the Search for Transcendent Beauty in the Music of Emmylou Harris by Mark McEntire

“Here, There, and Everywhere”: Images of Jesus in American Popular Culture by Dan W. Clanton Jr.

’Tis a Pity She’s (Still) a Whore: Popular Music’s Ambivalent Resistance to the Reclamation of Mary Magdalene by Philip Culbertson

Spittin’, Cursin’, and Outin’: Hip-Hop Apocalypse in the Imperial Necropolis by Jim Perkinson
The Bible and Reggae: Liberation or Subjugation? by Noel Leo Erskine

Help Me Make It through the Night”: Narrating Class and Country Music in the Theology of Paul by Tex Sample

Jesus of the Moon: Nick Cave’s Christology by Roland Boer

Prophetic Voices in Graphic Novels: The “Comic and Tragic Vision” of Apocalyptic Rhetoric in Kingdom Come and Watchmen by Terry Ray Clark

Reading “Pop-Wise”: The Very Fine Art of “Making Do” When Reading the Bible in bro’Town by Steve Taylor

Daemons and Angels: The End of the World According to Philip Pullman by Tina Pippin

Close Encounters: The Bible as Pre-Text in Popular Culture by Laura Copier, Jaap Kooijman, and Caroline Vander Stichele

Pop Scripture: Creating Small Spaces for Social Change by Erin Runions

Personally, career-wise, I am pretty stoked. The publisher is the Society of Biblical Literature, which is the oldest (1880) and largest (8,500 members) international scholarly organization in the field of biblical studies, so it’s neat that first, they are publishing in this area and second, for me to have work published in such a place.

NB 1. One of the talks I gave at Spurgeons College in September drew on this.
NB 2. For a description of my method and some of the resources I used, go here.