Paper copy of this book just arrived for review. Looking forward to reading it on the plane in a week or so’s time.
Greenflame
Jottings on science, religion, technology, pop culture, photography and faith from the Aotearoa New Zealand
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As I’ve mentioned previously I really enjoy urban fantasy, and especially urban fantasy set in the UK. So I’ve been reading the ‘The Severed Streets’, the sequel to Paul Cornell’s ‘London Falling’. It was a good read, but one of my favourite bits was where he incorporated another of my favourite authors, Neil Gaiman, as a minor character in the story (Gaiman’s ‘Neverwhere’ being one of the first urban fantasy books I can remember reading). You can read about how that came about at the link below:
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Severed-Streets-Paul-Cornell/dp/0765330288%3FSubscriptionId%3D0PZ7TM66EXQCXFVTMTR2%26tag%3Dgreenflame01-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0765330288"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51wo2zgNT9L._SL160_.jpg" width="106" height="160" name="51wo2zgNT9L._SL160_.jpg" style="" /></a>   <a href="http://www.amazon.com/London-Falling-Paul-Cornell/dp/0765368102%3FSubscriptionId%3D0PZ7TM66EXQCXFVTMTR2%26tag%3Dgreenflame01-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0765368102"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51VvfwmM4pL._SL160_.jpg" /></a>   <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Neverwhere-Neil-Gaiman/dp/0380789019%3FSubscriptionId%3D0PZ7TM66EXQCXFVTMTR2%26tag%3Dgreenflame01-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0380789019"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Q7Jpt4RRL._SL160_.jpg" /></a> -
The Anzac Day service as College hit the right spot for me today – simple, well-meant and not overly buying into civil religion. It made me think about the collection of resources about Anzac Day that I’ve used over the years when teaching spirituality, contextual theology and public theology. So, I thought I’d list some of those in case they’re of interest to others.
Book sections and articles
Bluck, John. Long, White & Cloudy : In Search of a Kiwi Spirituality. Christchurch, N.Z.: Hazard Press, 1998. (“Not just poppies – the Anzac Spirit” (32-39))
Hunt, Graeme. “Anzac’s Ghost.” New Zealand Listener, 9 April 2005, 32-33.
Hunt, Graeme. “The Folly & the Glory.” New Zealand Listener, 14 May 2005, 19.
Harris, Brian. “Of Tall Poppies, Mateship & Pragmatism: Spirituality in the Australasian Context.” Stimulus 16, no. 3 (2008): 16-20.
Morris, Paul. “Spirit Abroad: Reflections on New Zealand Spirituality and Identity.” In Spirit Abroad : A Second Selection of New Zealand Spiritual Verse, edited by Paul Morris, Harry Ricketts and Mike Grimshaw, 217-30. Auckland, N.Z.: Godwit, 2004.
Moses, John A. “Was There an Anzac Theology?” Colloquium 35, no. 1 (2003): 3-13.
Stackhouse, Max L. “Civil Religion, Political Theology and Public Theology: What’s the Difference?”. Political Theology 5, no. 3 (2004): 275-93.
Taylor, Steve. “Scars on the Australasian Heart: Anzac Day as a Contextual Atonement Image.” New Zealand Journal of Baptist Research 6 (2001): 48-74.
Poems
Morris, Paul, Harry Ricketts, and Michael P. Grimshaw. Spirit in a Strange Land : A Selection of New Zealand Spiritual Verse. Auckland, N.Z.: Godwit, 2002.
Morris, Paul, Harry Ricketts, and Mike Grimshaw. Spirit Abroad : A Second Selection of New Zealand Spiritual Verse. Auckland, N.Z.: Godwit, 2004.
Web resources
Ministry for Culture and Heritage Anzac Day website – http://www.mch.govt.nz/nz-identity-heritage/anzacday
Official Anzac Day website – http://www.anzac.govt.nz/
School curriculum resources – Anzac Day – Lest we forget / National events and the NZC / Curriculum resources / Kia ora – NZ Curriculum Online
Songs
Sons of Gallipoli | Chris Skinner SM (YouTube video here – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbDWDviyVaw)
NZ Folk poems * An Old Gunner’s Poems (Various related songs and poems)
Television
Maori Television’s Anzac coverage – http://www.maoritelevision.com/search/all/anzac
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An eclectic bunch of links today, focusing upon biblical literacy, religion and video games, and video games as a way of creating wellbeing.
First up a new book from Heidi Campbell and Gregory Grieve
Quick review here: Religion Book Review: Playing with Religion in Digital Games by Heidi A. Campbell and Gregory P. Grieve.
Next a link to Bible literacy is going up, not down – thanks, Lady Gaga; The UK Bible Society survey mentioned can be found here.
And finally, Tapping Into the Emotional Side of Video Games: Developing Hope, Healing and Love.
Related links to this latter one include the use of the games mentioned here in church settings – See http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-08/09/geekdad-hatches-exeter-cathedrals-journey-service and http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00sg1fq
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I have a bunch of books on my desk at the moment that I’m hoping I can have a look at over the Easter break.
“Raising Children in a Digital Age: Enjoying The Best And Avoiding The Worst” (Bex Lewis)
Too many books and not enough time to read them all.
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I met with Prof. Toru Takahashi a week or two back, while he was here at the University of Waikato on sabbatical. Good conversations around cyborgs, religion, animé and manga. He’s written mostly in Japanese, but here’s an English version of a short article of his.
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Just the kind of encouraging thing to read first thing on a Monday morning…
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A couple of interesting posts on online academia. The first looks at how PhD students might use online resources and networks to promote and resource their own research, while the second looks at developments in online theological education.
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Mental health amongst academics doesn’t really get talked about to much. Constant change within the tertiary sector, continual creeping (and often accelerating) bureaucracy, and an ever increasing audit culture can and do reduce space for collegiality, fulfilling a sense of vocation and developing a kind of work life balance (e.g. spending your annual leave doing the research your job requires but doesn’t allow time for in your regular work schedule). In this environment, mental health issues are hard to manage and even seen as a kind of normality sometimes. These recent articles on the issue from The Guardian pick up on this.
- Mental health and higher education: ‘I won’t let depression hold back my academic career’ | Higher Education Network | Guardian Professional
- There is a culture of acceptance around mental health issues in academia | Higher Education Network | Guardian Professional
- Dark thoughts: why mental illness is on the rise in academia | Higher Education Network | Guardian Professional
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With more students using web-based/cloud-based software to write their work up in, this looks like a useful addition for Google Docs – See EasyBib Bibliography Creator – Google Docs add-on.
PaperPile does something similar but it isn’t free, RefWorks (if you have access to that) can sort of fake doing it too.
