Anabaptist Superheroes!?!?

September 1, 2010 in Comics, Faith & Religion by stepheng | No comments

Someone recently pointed me towards Pax Avalon: Conflict Resolution, a ’superhero’ comic book series with a Mennonite background. I can’t even imagine how that would play out, so I’ll try and get an issue or two and have a look.

There’s a review of it over at Pax Avalon by Steven “Reece” Friesen | ComixTALK

Pacifist comic book superheroes are few and far between. In my experience, even those espousing peaceful solutions (e.g. Wonder Woman and Dove of Hawk and Dove) end up in fist fights etc. more often than not, or are portrayed as impotent in the face of evil. I wonder how the Anabaptist dimension plays out in Pax Avalon?

XBox Apocalypse: Video Games and Revelatory Literature

August 29, 2010 in Science, Technology & Religion by stepheng | No comments

A interesting short article by Rachel Wagner at Ithaca College.

See SBL Forum: XBox Apocalypse: Video Games and Revelatory Literature

Will add it to the reading list for the Bible and Popular Culture course.

Religion and comic books

August 29, 2010 in Comics, Faith & Religion by stepheng | No comments

While at CMRC 2010 I found out about this range of books from Continuum. Looks really interesting - especially the ‘Graven Images’ book.


“Graven Images: Religion in Comic Books & Graphic Novels” (Continuum)


“Comics and the City: Urban Space in Print, Picture and Sequence” (Jorn Ahrens, Arno Meteling)


“The Power of Comics: History, Form and Culture” (Randy Duncan, Matthew J. Smith)


“Secret Identity Crisis: Comic Books and the Unmasking of Cold War America” (Matthew J. Costello)

And related to the religion and comic books theme, Newsarama has had a number of brief articles on interaction of the Islam inspired comic book series “The 99″ with DC Comics mainstream titles and characters.

25 classic science fiction movies?

August 29, 2010 in Science Fiction by stepheng | No comments

io9 have been posting different lists recently their top science fiction shows and movies. As always it’s a subjective kind of thing, but I think that movies shouldn’t be eligible for the ‘classic’ category until at least 5 years have passed and the dust has settled over all the hype about them. So in the following list that would rule out: Inception, District 9, Moon, and Children of Men.

See 25 classic science fiction movies that everybody must watch.

On the other hand, The top 20 essential science fiction TV shows, feels mostly right.

Citing iBooks, Kindle books and other eBooks?

August 17, 2010 in Teaching/Education by stepheng | 3 comments

I just know this is going to come up in the near future when marking student essays (or writing my own papers). The ‘classic’ eBooks through the university library basically have a verbatim image of the page of a print version - citing them is easy. But what about eBooks that have repaginated the text, is there a variant way of citing these if you need to cite a page no.?

Annual School of Theology Lecture: Enlarging boundaries of compassion

August 16, 2010 in Faith & Religion by stepheng | No comments

Annual School of Theology Lecture: Enlarging boundaries of compassion

(Theology)
18 August 2010
7.30pm
Venue: Library Lecture Theatre B15, The University of Auckland

Speaker: Professor Kevin Clements, Foundation Chair of Peace and Conflict Studies, Previous Director of the New Zealand Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Otago??Theories of competitive and possessive individualism lie at the heart of the Neo-Liberal economic agenda and a zero sum view of democratic politics. This lecture argues that these theories are based on a profound misunderstanding of the key drivers of human behaviour. It proposes that far from being “hard wired” for competition, human beings are “hard wired” for social bonding and connection. The lecture will explore some of the psychological and sociological sources of altruism and reflect on how narrow or wide are our boundaries of compassion. This question will be addressed through the concept of a “grievable community” or “who are we are willing to mourn for?”

Professor Clements is the Foundation Chair of Peace and Conflict Studies and Director of the New Zealand National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (NCPACS) at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, and Secretary General of the International Peace Research Association. Prior to taking up these positions he was the Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies and Foundation Director of the Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. His career has been a combination of academic analysis and practice in the areas of peacebuilding and conflict transformation.

Professor Clements has been a regular consultant to a variety of non-governmental and intergovernmental organisations on disarmament, arms control, conflict resolution, development and regional security issues. He has written or edited 7 books and over 150 chapters /articles on conflict transformation, peacebuilding, preventive diplomacy and development with a specific focus on the Asia Pacific region.

Living in a Simulation?

August 3, 2010 in Transhumanism by stepheng | 2 comments

Nick Bostrom’s question - are we living in a simulation? - gets another airing over here: Clay Farris Naff: Sims, Suffering and God: Matrix Theology and the Problem of Evil

Bostrom’s original article “Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?” is over here: http://www.nickbostrom.com/

Interesting course

August 1, 2010 in Comics by stepheng | 2 comments

Tomorrow in the Bible and Popular Culture course we begin to look at ethics and how interpretation of the Bible (esp. origin stories) functions in that. At some point we’ll intersect with comic book narratives as contemporary morality plays. While surfing around the web today thinking about that, I came across this course that deals with superheroes - looks interesting.

COM 4849 Mythic Rhetoric of the American Superhero
Course blog: SUPERHERO RHETORIC FORTRESS OF BLOGITUDE!

Akma » Hurts Cause It’s True

August 1, 2010 in Teaching/Education by stepheng | No comments

Akma » Hurts Cause It’s True points to this cartoon about university web sites - xkcd: University Website

Having spent a couple of years looking at an enormous number of university and other institutional web sites while looking for a job toward the end of the PhD (and after that) I can assert that it’s just like that. Oh, and there should be second cartoon about the uselessness of results from institutional search engines.

Inside Higher Ed - Career advice for the summer…

July 25, 2010 in Teaching/Education by stepheng | No comments

Inside Higher Ed has been running a useful weekly series about working on academic projects and writing over the (northern hemisphere) summer break. Check them out at the links below:

  1. Career Advice: No More Post-Summer Regret - Inside Higher Ed
  2. Career Advice: Shut Up and Write - Inside Higher Ed
  3. Career Advice: Meet Your Bodyguard - Inside Higher Ed
  4. Career Advice: Why Aren’t You Writing? - Inside Higher Ed
  5. Career Advice: Lower Your Standards - Inside Higher Ed
  6. Career Advice: Writing IS Thinking - Inside Higher Ed