medievalist fail

[bedlamsbard]

What one would have seen if they walked into my Medieval Religious Culture tutorial today would have been two Catholics (who went to Catholic school) and a professor who specializes in medieval religious history animatedly discussing the Bible, and me sitting there in shell-shocked silence.

The highlight of the class really must have been me admitting, slightly high-pitched, that I hadn't read the Old Testament or the New Testament, which really threw my professor. He flailed a moment and then went, "Well, you're going to have to read the Bible if you want to continue in medieval studies!" "...that's why I'm also classics."

(There's only three people in the tutorial. I think it's really obvious when one of them isn't talking, but I didn't know what to say; I have nothing to contribute when we're talking about the Bible or bible school or anything of that sort, because I have to convert the analogies to even more analogies that make sense to me, because the New Testament (or Old Testament!) analogies absolutely do not, because I don't have that background. I knew this would probably happen at some point during the semester, but I didn't expect it would go on for almost an hour. I mentioned, I think, at one previous session that I wasn't Christian, and I think the assumption was probably that I was Jewish, because Tulane has a fairly large Jewish population. Um, sorry. Pagan. Not that that's come out yet, there's probably an assumption that I'm atheist or maybe possibly Buddhist.)

Agh. Well. That was painful. I was really hoping we were going to talk about something else.

*

The temperature dropped forty degrees in about a day (be hot or be cold, New Orleans, but at least be consistent) and today it hailed while I was in class: the end is clearly nigh. On the other hand, at least we're not expecting snowstorms or ice storms or, my personal favorite back home, freezing fog? So I guess complaining that it's measly 37 degrees F (it was lower this morning) is sort of worthless in the grand scheme of things, compared to Massachusetts or Chicago or somewhere Up North, but, I mean, the day before yesterday it was SEVENTY DEGREES AND SUNNY. Those were the days, man. The very, very confusing days.

*

Good thing: the classics prof I asked to help with my honors thesis said yes! I am not sure I'm more surprised that he said yes or that he's not going on sabbatical next semester.

Comments

[darklyndsea]

Bringing religion into any sort of contact with school is always awkward, especially when people Make Assumptions about your religious experiences. I had to read some of the bible as the summer reading for AP English back in high school (their excuse was "you'll see references/allusions all the time in literature!", to which I really wanted to ask why we weren't reading celtic mythology instead since I've seen a lot more of that), and apparently we get to read some more in Latin this semester (and there are really no words for how glad I am that I don't have uber-religious guy from first semester in my class this time around), but fortunately nobody's made assumptions like that.

I would be jealous of the fact that you've got 30 degrees on me, but school's been canceled since Tuesday and has already been canceled for tomorrow, so...not so much. I hate going outside when it's cold. Though the catch-up work should be fun.

[bedlamsbard]

I am -- vaguely amused about how my professor made no assumptions that anyone in the class had any experience in medieval history, but I think there's just sort of the general idea that one must have some kind of experience with Christianity, which, okay, I am vastly uncomfortable in churches and Christianity makes no sense to me. Possibly because I've never actually had it taught to me in words that I understand? I just. I really wish there was a class that I could take that would be Intro to Christianity or something that would actually explain it.

Anyway. What I was getting at with my first sentence is I think that although there might not have been the assumption that anyone taking the class would have any prior history knowledge, I have the slight suspicion that there might have been the assumption that one would have prior religious knowledge. I know I flailed when the intro to one of my textbooks said, "Well, in the first edition I made the assumption that most people know basic things like what mass is and what communion wafer is and the way a church is set up, but in the latest edition this is no longer true and that's why there's a new edition." (A flail of joy, let me tell you. I dropped a class last semester because I was too uncomfortable with the assumptions my prof and the reading were both making about religion.)

The only times my uni has cancelled school have been for Hurricane Gustav (when we evacuated!) and when the Saints won the Superbowl last year. Look, New Orleans has its priorities, okay?

[darklyndsea]

I know that at my university, there's a Sociology of Religion class which presumably covers at least the basics (and christianity's probably covered for at least a chapter).

My knowledge of religion is...honestly, the best analogy for it is that it's like the fannish osmosis I get of fandoms that I have never read/watched and have read maybe one crossover fic with them: horribly vague, but I have some idea of what's going on if it's a big enough fandom (christianity is like Supernatural because of the bible belt thing: I can even identify main characters and some major events! Everything else is a lot more hit and miss), and I'm never sure exactly what's canon and what's just the slant of this particular corner of fandom. Things could get interesting if I had to actually rely on my knowledge of it for anything. I mean, one of my sources is my Latin textbook, which says that Christians drink blood at their dinner parties. It's crazy to make the assumption that any student knows anything that wasn't covered in prerequisite classes, because there are always people who don't.

[bedlamsbard]

I mean, to be fair, I'm not sure I would actually take said class: I have registered for and dropped both "Ancient Christianity" and "Intro to the Hebrew Bible" without ever showing up to a single class. (Which makes my ability to take TWO religion classes this semester very very shocking.)

That makes a lot of sense! I know -- well, my dad made me read two books from the Bible, part of my reading list for the summer when I was in, I think, middle school, and honestly the only thing I remember from one of them is Jesus smiting a fig tree because it didn't have any figs on it. And honestly? That's basically the only part of the bible that's ever made much of an impression on me. I know a little bit, through osmosis, and, well, I read Genesis and I watched Kings and I saw the Prince of Egypt and Indiana Jones and I can get some references, but I didn't grow up with it. (Not even the way I did with the Greek myths.)

I am really amused by how thrown my prof was by that revelation, though. He clearly never even considered that someone taking a class on medieval religious culture might not have any religious background -- maybe no history background, or medieval background, but no religious background? And then the other two girls started kindly recommending children's bibles to get the basic idea down.

[darklyndsea]

I was tempted to take sociology of religion solely because religion is all about brainwashing, not because of any actual interest in the subject matter.

I started reading the bible from the beginning once, and I got up to this part where it was all "incest! Yay!"...and then I backed away not-so-slowly.

Kind of weird that he was so surprised by it, though.

[bedlamsbard]

I don't know if we've ever offered a class like that -- I know that we offer Intro Buddhism, because my roommate's taken it, and a couple of people have designed their own Religious Studies major, but I don't know what we actually offer that counts towards that.

Maybe he just assumed that anyone taking a class on medieval religious culture would be at least vaguely familiar with religion?

[scy]

Bringing religion into school stuff can be incredibly uncomfortable. Linguistics isn't an area where I got put on the spot too often - mostly I got to do things like analyze the speech patterns of different communites (and do things like survey people on 'do you prefer 'gay' or 'queer'). But when I am asked, 'pagan' is the answer.

My sister went to church to read the Bible along with a friend and while she too is not at all Christian, she enjoyed it - with the exception of 'ALL THE STUFF THEY GOT WRONG, SCY, WHY ARE THEY SO WRONG?!' Which makes for some amusing phone calls between the two of us.

[bedlamsbard]

The thing is that no one asks! Well, not in class anyway, I've had a couple people ask outside of class. I mean, I think most of my professors feel it would be horribly rude to ask, but -- man, my professor's face when he realized that no, I really had never ever ever read the Bible was certainly something.

Heh. I think -- eh, I had a very Christian friend in elementary school who once solemnly told me that I was going to go to hell, and another one who brought her bible to school and tried to convert me. So sometimes I think there's a real reason that I am so very -- antsy, about Christianity. (Also, like I said above, it makes no sense to me at all, and I honestly truly don't understand why it's one of the world's major religions on a spiritual level; it is only this past year that I have begun working through why politically it made sense in some cases.)

[scy]

My grandfather tried to convert us. He would get started on religious matters and my father, who was subjected to attempted forcible conversions, stepped in with paternal ferocity. To his everlasting credit, my father has never required us to believe in any religion and believes we should make up our own minds about that sort of thing.

I think that I get twitchy about Christianity because of that, as well as the fact that yes, it's a major religion, but that doesn't make it BETTER than any other one. *sighs* That shouldn't be the POINT.

[bedlamsbard]

My father is very similar! Although I think he's really confused by me. (Given that he is theone who started me on the Greek myths in the first place...my religion and my field of study are both his fault.)

[bessemerprocess]

I went to a Catholic Uni, and every single person who I tried to explain the "Not A Christmas Celebrator" thing to automatically went, "Oh, you're Jewish!" like they'd just solved a puzzle of some sort.

The only time we ever really brought up religion in class though was the day we were talking about Deism and the American revolution, which led to a knock down drag out on what you had to do to be Christian... lets just say, the prof (who I totally love) had to come in and apologize the next day.

[bedlamsbard]

The way to confuse people even more re: Christmas is to tell them that you are not Christian, were not raised Christian, your family is not Christian, and yet...you still celebrate Christmas and always have celebrated Christmas. One of my friends (very very Methodist) got into an argument with me last semester about how I could not be really celebrating Christmas, that you absolutely cannot make Christmas a secular holiday, which is...I don't know. Christmas has always been a secular holiday for me. I've never had religion wrapped up in Christmas. (For that matter, I never had religion wrapped up in Easter, either, just chocolate and an Easter ham. Also the Easter that my dog killed the Easter bunny.) (Full disclosure: this one I'm really bitter on, because of the shock of one of my friends basically telling me that I was wrong, that the last twenty years of my life were invalid, etc. Er, in retrospect, I have issues.)

[bessemerprocess]

See, I'm totally used to people who practice non-Christian religions celebrating Christmas, it is a federal holiday after all, and thus celebratable by all Americans, yes? I grew up with several kids from Hindu, Buddhist, and Shinto families that celebrated secular Christmas. It seems really wrong to argue that people who don't have whatever specific belief set can't celebrate a federal and culturally dominate holiday. In fact, I'm pretty sure my in-laws would dance a dance of joy if I just celebrated Christmas even without the converting.

[bedlamsbard]

Hell, I've seen it celebrated by non-Christians in non-Christian countries; I've been abroad in Asia over the Christmas season a couple times in the past, and, you know, seeing a Christmas tree in Thailand is sort of a bizarre sight, but there's a reason I've never thought of it as a specifically religious holiday. I've just -- I've never had that argument thrown at me before, so it was a very bizarre experience. (And I think I know why, or at least part of the reason why, my family celebrated Christmas without being Christian, now that I think about it. During one of my grandmother's flip-flopping of Christian denominations, she stumbled onto the one where you don't celebrate any holidays whatsoever, and that made a big impression on my dad, I believe.)

I can kind of see where she was coming from, I guess that if you've grown up with something being a specifically religious holiday, the idea of taking said religion out of it must be mindboggling.