Alone in the Humanities

Last updated on: February 15, 2016 at 6:12 pm by Chase Padusniak

Alone in the Humanities 2016-02-15T18:12:39-04:00 Chase Padusniak

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

(“Mortem Christ,” by Christian Wind. Date: October 6, 2015. Source: Wikimedia, Creative Commons License).

Painfully aware of my otherness, I sat in my weekly seminar on Being and Time, ashes smeared on my forehead, knowingly alone. The next day, Thursday, it was time for “Mysticism and Modernity,” a course exploring the intersection between Christian mystical thought and critical theory. Surely someone else bothering to read Meister Eckhart must care about the transcendent. And yet, when my professor implied that we students might know of the sermon-form from church, he was met with snickers and nervous, not wholly un-derisive, laughter.

This is what it means to be a Catholic PhD student in the Humanities, a whirlpool of cluelessness and misunderstandings. How does someone with your interests still believe in God? Why, even in belief, would you commit yourself to a hierarchical, painfully-out-of-step church? Who indoctrinated you?

Of course no one has actually been brazen enough to ask these questions, but they underpin most of my experiences. People are curious, but curious like an American backpacker taking in soccer at a European pub: surely, this weird and complicated sport has something to do with my cultural past; it seems to support communal activity. But it’s never any more than an arcane, and sometimes laughable, game.

Early on, I tried attending Catholic fellowship meetings, but I seemed to have less in common with my fellow Catholics than with my own graduate cohort. Everyone was an economist, an engineer, or a foreign-policy analyst. Their paradigms lined up better with American Protestantism and its philosophical offshoots than they did with my Catholic readings of Sartre and Žižek. If I had declaimed Rilke or Merleau-Ponty, they would’ve declared they’d found happiness—and blinked.

Contra their glazed eyes, mine were somewhere between tearful and furrowed. The Humanities determine our theoretical conversations; they set the terms for our “culture wars.” You complain about this and that but you’ve never even read Judith Butler; you’ve Aquinas handy to end conversations, but you know nothing of Guy Debord. What exactly do you plan to change? I want to burst out:

Look, I am groaning beneath you,
as a wagon groans when laden with sheaves…
The swift of foot shall not escape,
nor shall the horseman save his life.
And the most stouthearted of warriors
shall flee naked on that day. (Amos 2:13,15-16)

Instead, I typically go back to reading Boethius and Lacan.

Previous Post

February 14, 2016

Charity, the Environment, and Papal Faux Pas

Next Post

February 16, 2016 On the Erotics of Lent

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Academia Culture Politics Reviews Theology Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 July 2021 December 2020 November 2020 July 2020 May 2020 April 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 August 2019 July 2019 April 2019 March 2019 December 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What empire was in power when Jesus was born?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Roman Babylonian Persian Greek