Academia as a vocation. Thoughts on teaching, scholarship, and the other things that the privilege of being an academic affords the ability to think about. I also use this blog when I teach as a central repository of stuff related to various courses, so you'll find some of that if you browse here too.
21.5.12
S/S/F Summer 2012: Eifelheim
Here is a place for people to post their questions for the class discussion of Eifelheim as comments.
The book's main plot is of a intellectual village priest dealing with questions of theology amidst an alien encounter. I had trouble relating this to anything beyond the realm of an interesting science fiction story, before realizing that the issues Dietrich contends with can be expanded:
Given that we are not special- in the book it is because we are not alone, for modern humanity because science has so radically changed our understanding of the universe around us- what does that mean for our conceptions of God? Does it disprove it?
This is a theological question (narratively expressed in Eifielheim), but it has implications for social science as well. What happens to people when their long-held notions and understandings are radically changed by the introduction of new notions and understandings?
1 comment:
The book's main plot is of a intellectual village priest dealing with questions of theology amidst an alien encounter. I had trouble relating this to anything beyond the realm of an interesting science fiction story, before realizing that the issues Dietrich contends with can be expanded:
Given that we are not special- in the book it is because we are not alone, for modern humanity because science has so radically changed our understanding of the universe around us- what does that mean for our conceptions of God? Does it disprove it?
This is a theological question (narratively expressed in Eifielheim), but it has implications for social science as well. What happens to people when their long-held notions and understandings are radically changed by the introduction of new notions and understandings?
Post a Comment