A Group Interview with the Editors of Queering Christianity - Part II

Part II of yesterday's interview:

What do you want readers to learn from your book?

R. Shore-Goss (RS): As non-LGBTQI readers read the book, they will see how queer Christians share some of the similar experiences of Christianity with unique differences as well. There is a place for all of us at the table. The mission of the open and inclusive table, that repeats the historical Jesus, is a powerful symbol of God’s wild grace.

Cheng (PC): My hope is that the readers of our book will recognize the diversity of perspectives that exist within queer theology, and that the book can help others to find their own theological voices.

Bohache (TB):That God’s table has always been open. It is the gatekeepers who have restricted it.

Thomas (NT): I would like readers to hear both an alternative voice and the liberation that the book offers to our Sacred Text. Many will, I hope, give God a second, third or  . . . chance to discover a liberating, loving and inclusive God.

J. Shore-Goss (JSG): My chapters were about allowing space for deep listening, yet throughout the book there is the challenge to open up, allow light into the places that were once dark and know—truly know—that all are welcome to the table . . . that in the Creator's eyes we are all one, all worthy, and all loved.

More (MM): I hope they think, and question what they thought they knew, and become aware of a greater expanse of God’s grace in the world.

Saniuk (JS):To give themselves permission to see Jesus in the light of their own experiences, not just in what they have been taught to believe; to see him as a companion who encountered incredible brutality . . . and then rose again.

If your book inspired one change in the world, what would you want it to be?

RS: Greater inclusiveness of the Christian denominations of queer theologies and voices and more “green” churches.

PC: I would love to see religious discussions about LGBTQI issues move from polarized debates to polyvalent conversations in which multiple perspectives are held together in creative tension.

TB:More inclusivity and greater discussion of queer issues in the church and more interest in theology within the queer community(ies).

NT: The ultimate and radical full inclusion of God’s people regardless of gender, gender identity, race, color, faith experience, age, or other “ism” that excludes and separates people into an “in” or “out” group!

JSG: My wish would be that all churches and religions find a place for LGBTQI persons at their tables. Once our faith communities find a way of seeing all as equal, so will the rest of our societies.

MM: The one change I would pray for is that people come to openly accept transgenders as they wish to be—normalized in society without the stigma of hate and marginalization, and without being abused by fundamentalist misuse of the Bible as a weapon against them.

JS:For churches to stop demonizing LGBTQI people (among others) in the name of God.

Where might others focus their energies in following on your work in this area?

RS: The development of heterosexual queer theologies, more reflections on transgendered and intersexed theologies, a theology of sexuality (inclusive of married, single, and alternative configurations) that pushes the exploration of the interconnections of sexuality and spirituality.

PC: My hope is that more LGBTQI theologians will write about the intersections of race and sexuality and, in particular, about the significant contributions that LGBTQI people of color have made to queer theology.

TB:Sexual minorities within the LGBTQI community(ies)

NT: I hope that a Theology of Inclusion might one day be developed.

JSG: This is a Christianity-based book coming out of the Metropolitan Community Churches experience of the open table. I would love to see other people of faith start to explore and see what something similar may look like in their context, Christian and non-Christian alike.

JS:I would love to see even more “queered” worship forms! We have an incredible freedom in MCC to re-make our collective spiritual practice. The open Communion table is just the beginning.

What are you working on now?

RS: I have the copyright for Jesus ACTED UP: A Gay and Lesbian Manifesto. It appeared in 1993 and was a classic in starting queer theology. I was just introduced as the “father of queer theology” at the UCC General Synod by a queer clergy. I intend to publish this classic in Kindle form: Jesus ACTED UP: Then and Now. I will re-publish the original book, and I have asked several scholars to talk about the then and the now (where are we going). I am also enmeshed in a Christian green theology and hope to have completed it in the fall of 2014.

PC: I am currently writing about what theologians need to know about queer theory for a forthcoming work on theology, sexuality, and gender.

TB: A book on “queering the Body of Christ” – expanding the disreputable ecclesiology touched on in my chapter “Unzipping Church” in Queering Christianity.

NT: Continue to work on marriage equality, immigration, the environment, equal access to health care, HIV/AIDS, poverty. Future book: "A Theology of Inclusion: The Emerging Church in the 21st Century."

JSG: I am currently studying and researching for my Ph.D. through the Graduate Theological Foundation. I am looking at the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence as an international queer pluralistic spiritual community for the 21^stcentury.

JS: There is really interesting work on shame in congregations that is just coming out. I also am looking more deeply into the particularities of the “T” side of LGBTQI, and intersections with race and gender that I haven’t yet been able to explore.

A Group Interview with the Editors of Queering Christianity - Part I

Why is the publication of Queering Christianity important at this moment in history—that is, how does it relate to today's news headlines or connect to contemporary questions or issues?

Robert Shore-Goss (RS): As the ghettoized church is drawing to an end, except for some geographic areas, it brings LGBTQI experience into dialogue with mainstream Christian denominations. At the recent UCC General Synod, the head of the Open and Affirming Churches(some 1,200 churches) indicated plans to recommend the book. There is a strong parallel between marriage equality and churches opening up to include LGBTQI people into their churches, ordaining them and marrying them. This has led an upsurge of gay/lesbian students in the seminaries.

Patrick Cheng (PC): LGBTQI issues have been in the headlines recently with the U.S. Supreme Court's rulings on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California Proposition 8. Religious debates over LGBTQI issues remain hotly contested, however, and I believe that books such as Queering Christianity are important contributions to the broader conversations about LGBTQI issues.

Thomas Bohache (TB): In the public/civil/secular sphere we see more and more progress in rights for LGBTQI people. However, we do not see the same sort of progress in the religious sphere. This book I believe will open non-queer people to some points of view foreign to them; for queer people, the book will make them realize that they do indeed have a place at the table, even if they have not yet found it.

Neil Thomas (NT): In the changing religious and political scene, with the growing acceptance of LGBTQI peoples in mainline religious organizations, this book is both vital and timely in the ongoing understanding and evolution of God’s revealed Word.

Joseph Shore-Goss (JSG): As the marriage equality movement moves forward in the United States and in other countries there are still places where the LGBTQI community are still persecuted and even killed for being who they are…created and loved in God’s image. This book helps move that conversation forward…but more importantly, move it forward in a Christian context.

Megan More (MM): With the increased focus on the LGBTQI community regarding marriage equality and job protections, removing the stigma and dispelling the ignorance is more important than ever, especially when it comes to religion and dogma.

Joan Saniuk (JS): We are in the midst of an incredible sea change in the culture. The overturning of DOMA is a legal acknowledgment that LGBTQI people, and the families we form (or not), are for real. Queering Christianitygives voice to the experience, and wisdom, that this community has learned in the past half-century. It’s a perfect time to bring that wisdom out into the open.

What drew you to the topic of Queering Christianity? How does the topic relate to you personally?

PC: As an openly gay seminary professor and a queer theologian, I have written extensively about the intersections of theology, pastoral care, and the spiritual lives of LGBTQI people.

TB: Inclusivity is extremely important to me for it is the central message of Jesus. We cannot call ourselves followers of Christ if we do not embrace and encourage inclusivity across all boundaries. I am a gay man who was ejected from the table and told not to make a reservation again, so this topic is very dear to my heart. After 25 years of ministry to the LGBTQI community(ies), I see that it is still just as important as it was in my youth.

NT: As a pastor in Metropolitan Community Churches for the past 24 years, this is both my journey and my story to understand that God’s Word is queer, subversive, and includes me.

JSG: I have to admit my husband is an editor so I am close to the context to begin with. I had just finished my M.A. thesis on pastoral care and counseling with transgendered youth and that is what actually led to the invite to write for the book. I have been openly gay and active in the LGBTQI community since I was 22. I have always been involved deeply in my community, and this book allowed me to engage some topics in a deep spiritual context where my passion for my faith and my community can come together.

MM: As a transwoman and ordained minister, I feel that a legitimate "trans" voice must be heard.

JS: I joined MCC in the 1990s –a time of horrific stress in the queer and HIV-affected communities. It was both baffling, and alarming, to see many organizations disintegrate, whether through exhaustion or with bizarre infighting, as Eric Rofes and Urvashi Vaid among others have chronicled. I needed to understand how I—how we as MCC—could maintain a ministry of hope amid all that chaos.

What did you learn in the course of your research; what discovery surprised you the most?

TB: That the diverse types of discrimination are all located in the concept of power—who has it, who wants it, and what people do to keep it.

Thomas: I discovered much more about God’s radical inclusion and the misinterpretation of God’s Word as revealed through evangelical Christianity, which has dominated the religious discourse in this past century. This dominant culture is shifting and changing, and a more progressive voice is emerging.

JSG: What truly astounded me in my research was that no one--I mean no one--had addressed pastoral care for transgendered youth. This is one of the most underserved populations within the queer community and a group at the highest risk as often they are kicked out of homes, living on the streets, susceptible to drug abuse, prostitution, and/or rape.

MM: Little surprised me in relation to my own writing, since these are issues that have been dear to my heart for some time. Realizing how this has affected other theologians and authors was my own pleasant surprise.

JS: I discovered Leanne McCall Tigert’s work on trauma theory at the same time that I was studying congregations where there had been abuse. Suddenly, all the drama I’d observed began to fit into a larger pattern.

What challenges did you face in your research or writing?

JSG: The most difficult thing was taking old concepts or hetero-normative language and seeking out the expression of thought that I believed would be more accessible to the LGBTQI community.

MM: My only real challenges is the lack of writing on this issue overall. Transgenders in religion is not a very expansive subject, yet.

JS: I really struggled with how to apply the information from trauma theory, to talk about some very real psychological challenges without pathologizing. 

The Dead Tree Version of the Internet: Using Books in the Digital Age High School

By: Nick Burns, Student, Marketing Intern, ABC-CLIO

To the publishers of the world be contented to know that you are, in fact, still needed. For high school research papers, at least. Of course, the volume of information available on the Internet has grown, is growing, and always will grow—that is the fundamental trait of the Internet—but this information remains (and likely will remain) for the most part scattered, undeveloped, and insufficiently specific for even high school research purposes. That is, if the high school student in question wants to write a halfway-decent paper.

I did want to write a halfway-decent paper earlier this year for my AP US History class, on the writings of Henry David Thoreau and how they shaped the later American conservation movement that starred personalities like the bravado-inebriated Teddy Roosevelt, the eccentric Gifford Pinchot, and the solitary saint of Yosemite, John Muir. The Internet was the place to start. Online resources, since they cater to reduced attention spans and to the most general of audiences, and thanks to the interconnectedness of the Internet, are usually the most useful to start with. The ABC-CLIO page on the American conservation movement, in the American History database, serves as an excellent example of this. I came across names I'd heard of (Thoreau, Emerson, Muir) but also important ones I hadn't (George Marsh was the most important of these). The broad network that is the Internet let me get the minimum level of knowledge to be able to navigate more complicated analyses of the time period.

However, an understanding of history, like an understanding of most things, is not complete without an array of biased and unbiased sources that must be synthesized into a complete picture. Coming to that understanding requires in these perspectives a fair amount of specificity, and perhaps even more importantly the right amount of bias—not bias, maybe, but inflection: not a sterile encyclopedia article, yet not a zealot ranting on a comments page—something that can only be found in books. What's more, a well-researched, well-written nonfiction book is a specific, personal investigation into an issue. That's what differentiates books from crowd-sourced Internet articles.

The databases were useful for gaining the level of knowledge necessary to be able to parse more sophisticated reference materials. To gain further detail and insight necessary to build a well-researched and well-thought-out enough argument it took me a backpack full of biographies, books on conservation history, books by Thoreau, Emerson, and Muir themselves, as well as essays by Wallace Stegner, and lastly the magnificently useful, diversely fascinating, and ridiculously heavy American Earth, Bill McKibben's compilation of the most important primary documents in American conservation history.

History papers can be—and, unfortunately, for the most part are—written using only Wikipedia articles, but these papers usually don't possess any valuable insights, unless those insights come solely from the (hormone-addled, nascent and naïve) mind of the kid writing it. In other words, the Internet—in the sense of trying to form conclusions about history—is a tool, and an endlessly useful one, but one that can only take you so far. A book—in the same sense—is a tool, but it can also be something greater: a journey, because it requires commitment on the part of both author and reader. This commitment makes insight possible in a way that no other medium can, and this is why books will always have a place in the in the world of high school research papers, and in the world at large.

                        

 

Conflict in Egypt

By: Nancy Gallagher

On July 3, 2013, the military overthrew the elected Egyptian government. Led by the Muslim Brotherhood (the Society of Muslim Brothers), the government had come to power on June 30, 2012. Was it a second revolution, a necessary correction in the path of the January 25 (2011) Egyptian Revolution, or a military coup? Who were the Muslim Brothers, how did they rise to power, and why did they fall so spectacularly?

Hasan El-Banna, a schoolteacher and religious leader, established the Muslim Brothers in 1928. The organization initially sought to Islamize society in order to drive the British out, but King Farouk (reigned 1936–1952) and Gamal Abdel Nasser (president 1952–1970) severely suppressed it. Most of the Muslim Brothers leadership came to follow the ideas of Sayyid Qutb, who advocated the assassination of political leaders who did not adopt his interpretation of Islamic Sharia law, calling them “infidels.” Over the years, the organization won many supporters because of its grassroots religious leadership and extensive social welfare organizations. In the elections that followed the January 25 Revolution, the Muslim Brothers candidate, Mohammad Morsi, was elected to power with 52% of the vote. His opponent, the candidate of the old regime, went into exile.

Many people voted for Morsi because he had vowed to carry out the goals of the revolution. He, however, soon demonstrated that he would carry out the goals of the Muslim Brothers. He proved unwilling to work with other factions. He did not take steps to reform the brutal and corrupt state security sector. He did not reach out to the opposition. He did not include Coptic Christians and women in his government, despite his many campaign promises. In November, six months after being elected, he issued a decree that would shield him from judicial review. After intense opposition, he revoked the decree, but the damage was done. He then forced through a constitution that was narrow and exclusionary. Women feared they would lose their hard- and recently won rights. Copts and other minorities feared for their future in Egypt. The government did little to reassure them. Morsi and his appointees proceeded to go after the media, the NGOs, the judiciary, and the arts.

Before being elected he had announced a program to revive the economy, but it did not materialize. The economy continued to sink. A loan from the International Monetary Fund could not be obtained. Tourists did not return. He appointed a member of al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya—the organization allegedly responsible for the massacre of 62 people, mostly tourists, in Luxor in1997—to the post of mayor of Luxor.

He thought he had tamed the military when he dismissed Defense Minister Hussein Tantawi, who had been Egypt's de facto ruler after the 2011 revolution, but Tantawi’s replacement, Abdul Fatah El-Sisi, proved to be the ultimate power broker.  When Morsi broke relations with Syria and encouraged his followers to wage jihad against the Syrian regime, without first informing him, Sisi decided Morsi had to go. 

On June 30, a year after Morsi came to power, at least two million people demonstrated against the government in response to the Tamarod (rebel) campaign that began with a petition calling for early elections. Egyptians claimed it was the largest demonstration in history. The Muslim Brothers bused members from outside Cairo to stage a rival demonstration, but the extent of public disaffection was clear.

On July 3, the army arrested Morsi. His supporters then confronted the military and dozens were killed. On July 8 the military opened fire on a demonstration in front of the Republican Guards headquarters, killing 59 and wounding over 300.

It was a military coup against an elected government, but one supported by a vast number of people who felt that the country could not survive such misrule much longer. The military hastily made Adly Mansour, head of the High Constitutional Court, interim president. Six judges and four lawyers were to revise the 2012 constitution. Noted economist Hazem el-Beblawi became prime minister, and opposition leader and Nobel Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei vice-president. The Gulf States rushed billions of dollars in aid to support the collapsing Egyptian economy. Nearly all the leaders of the Muslim Brothers were arrested and its television stations were closed.

The Muslim Brothers remain convinced that they were elected in free and fair elections and should have been allowed to complete their terms. Egyptis deeply polarized. The economy is weak, the security forces are unreformed, and the role of the military in future governments is unclear. Will the revolutionaries be able to realize their goals of “bread, freedom, and social justice?” The struggle has barely begun.

Nancy Gallagher teaches Middle East history at the American University in Cairo and is a research professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB). She is a widely published expert on the Middle East and Arab North Africa.

. . . 

For more on Egypt and its history, check out these resources:

Global Security Watch—Egypt: A Reference Handbook

Denis J. Sullivan and Kimberly Jones

Egypt

Mona Russell

B(l)ack in the Kitchen: Food Network

by Lisa Guerrero
 

Introduction by David J. Leonard

The conversation surrounding Paula Deen and her use of the “N word” has simultaneously erased the accusations of job discrimination and harassment all while ignoring the larger issues of race and Food Network. In fact, Deen’s ultimate firing by the Food Network has allowed the network to position itself as anti-racist, as America’s moral conscience. Refusing to allow prejudice to stain its airwaves, the Food Network has situated itself as a progressive force of accountability and justice.

Deen, however, is reflective of their brand—one that normalizes and operationalizes whiteness all while reimagining the world of food as racially transcendent. Revelations regarding Deen burst that illusion. With this in mind, we are sharing an excerpt from Lisa Guerrero’s brilliant chapter from our recent book, African Americans on Television: Race-ing for Ratings

. . .

In all of its programming, even within programs where race is undeniably apparent, either because of the celebrity or the cuisine, food is presented as a race-neutral cultural object.  Unfortunately, in a race-based society, as the United Statesis, “race-neutral” invariably gets translated as “white.”  Food Network trades in the notion of the “racelessness” of food to create a commodified sense of neoliberal inclusion and equality, wherein the focus is placed on individuals and not on systems. Food is portrayed across the network as a “universal language;” but as discussed above, it is definitely constructed as a specifically class-based language, as well as a language constructed in specifically racialized terms.  To be fair, Food Network is no different from most other cable television networks where whiteness is predominant and becomes easily normalized and rendered invisible to most viewers.

Ironically, the relatability that Food Network carefully crafts around its personalities is almost completely belied by the “everyday” lifestyles many of the network celebrities are show to have as they are strategically integrated into their respective shows, most notably with Ina Garten, Giada DeLaurentis, and Bobby Flay.  While the wealth and whiteness displayed in these, and much of Food Network’s other programming is conspicuous, they are treated as commonplace, the effect of which is twofold:  1) it creates a socioracial standard when it comes to the act of food consumption; and 2) it suggestively endorses the idea of food as a racial and economic privilege. 

Through its successful erasure of race and class, Food Networkperpetuates certain understandings about the social landscape in which people think about food consumption and commodification as being generally equal amongst various populations, even as statistically and programmatically most people can see that food equality isn’t a reality.  But Food Network is able to maintain this profitable food fantasy by constructing its food narratives in a very particular sociohistorical vacuum that allows audiences to distance themselves from not only certain tediums surrounding daily food habits, but also the sociohistorical and socioeconomic systems of food production and preparation in the United States.  The strategic use of blackness on the network is one of the primary ways in which this distancing is enabled.

The relative absence of blackness on Food Network, while not unlike the relative absence of blackness on network television generally speaking, succeeds in denying the significant place African Americans have, both historically and contemporaneously, in the creation of American food culture and foodways.  This erasure, while creating an amputated impression of American food backgrounds, does so in deliberate ways that are in keeping with long histories of using whiteness to signify notions of expertise, virtuosity, superiority, propriety, and polish.  In other words, in order to cement the network’s guiding narrative of elevating food to a craft, an art, an aspiration, it needs to simultaneously elevate whiteness, usually white maleness. 

 Not surprisingly, the programming on Food Network frames American food in very Eurocentric terms, tracing food origins and traditions to primarily Western, European nations, while periodically recognizing the “exotic” fare of Latin America or Asia.  There is little to no recognition of African cuisines within programming, despite the growing popularity of African food and restaurants among American consumers sparked by growing numbers of African immigrants to the United States, and probably represented most notably by the often tokenized celebrity chef, Marcus Samuelsson, who was born in Ethiopia and raised in Sweden.  Neither is there much linkage drawn between the specificity of African American soul food and the development of much of what is considered American “southern food.”  The erasure of these African and African-American cultural linkages to American food habits and histories effectively reimagines a significant portion of American food architecture as almost exclusively white, a reimagining not supported by history. 

Now certainly Food Network isn’t The History Channel, and viewers aren’t necessarily expecting to be provided with critically accurate or developed histories of food origins, routes, or social significances.  Nonetheless, its lack of wider, more representative narrative frames within its programming results in two things:  First, there is a barely perceptible, encompassing whitening of both the network itself, as well as the perspectives it creates about food relationships within American populations.  Secondly, when racial “diversity” and representation do occur, they have the effect of “tokenism” rather than inclusion.  Nowhere is this latter effect more apparent than in the network’s small club of Black cooking personalities.

 The framing of Food Network and The Cooking Channel break down into simplistic terms as “The U.S.” and “The Global,” respectively.  As such, The Cooking Channel does appear to embrace diversity in a larger, more transparent way than Food Network.  However, the apparent differentials of framing are really only on a cosmetic level.  There are more people of color that appear regularly on The Cooking Channel, but only slightly more, and considering the overbearing whiteness of Food Network, it really wouldn’t take much to have “more” racial diversity.  But the neutralized by emphasizing the notion of  “the exotic.”  The people of color on The Cooking Channel are, by and large, not of the United States, creating a comforting distance between U.S. audiences and any troublesome considerations about racism. 

In scholarly terms, it wouldn’t be far off the mark to think about Food Network as “the colonial” and The Cooking Channel as “the postcolonial.”  In other words, Food Networkdenies race and its systems by trying to devalue and/or erase race altogether, while The Cooking Channel denies race and its systems by putting race on display in almost exhibitional terms so that audiences don’t relate to it as a “real” thing.  In both cases, whiteness is positioned as the fulcrum of food experiences and knowledges.  And ultimately, blackness, especially American blackness, is relegated to becoming the specialty ingredient that gets used sparingly in the recipe of televisual food programming for fear that its flavor won’t be palatable to American consumers.

 

Postscript: 

As we’ve seen over the last few days not only with the vociferous response by Deen supporters, but also with SCOTUS gutting the Voting Rights Act, Texas scrambling to capitalize on that decision by pushing through a Voter ID bill, the dehumanizing tactics of the defense counsel in the George Zimmerman trial, and the countless racist microaggressions the accounts of which we are bombarded with daily, Paula Deen’s words and behaviors are, in themselves, unsurprising and relatively unremarkable, but rather indicative of the banality of American racism.  As several scholars have articulately pointed out in response to the Deen controversy, (including David J. Leonard), and as I have tried to address in this piece in broader ways, while Deen should certainly be held responsible for the ways in which her actions contribute to the continuation of systemic and ideologic racisms in the United States, the problem is much bigger than her use of racial epithets and her disturbing bucolic nostalgia for the racial order of the antebellum South. 

Perhaps the biggest problem of which Deen is but one very small symptom, is a problem which will, in all likelihood strangle equality and freedom for allAmerican citizens; it is the problem of the United States’ misguided belief in its own magnanimity of race; the delusion that we have remedied our racial illnesses and no longer need to be vigilant about the sickness, and in fact, can be prideful about the “past tense” of our racial struggles.  This blind hubris (which Justice Ginsburg so aptly identified in her dissension to the Voting Rights Act decision), allows for people like Paula Deen to sincerely dislocate their actions from the insidiousness of racism…since racism has been fixed, (so it goes), then certainly what people do and to whom they do it can’t be considered racism. 

Unfortunately, this racist psychosis, the inability to see racism even as you are enacting it, supporting it, contributing to it, benefitting from it, is one of many deleterious side-effects of our post-racial nation, and is sure to kill us quicker than a Paula Deen recipe.   

. . . 

Lisa A. Guerrero is Associate Professor of Comparative Ethnic Studies at Washington State University Pullman.  She is the editor of Teaching Race in the 21st Century: College Professors Talk About Their Fears, Risks, and Rewards (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) and co-editor of African Americans onTelevision: Race-ing for Ratings (Praeger Press) with David J. Leonard.

Interview with Michael Frassetto, Author of The Early Medieval World: From the Fall of Rome to the Time of Charlemagne

How does the early medieval world differ from the classical world and the later Middle Ages?

The early medieval world differed in a number of ways from the ancient and later medieval worlds. It was much more rural than the ancient world; cities virtually disappeared in the early medieval world and the literate and urban culture associated with ancient Romevanished. The early medieval world was an increasingly Christian world, unlike the polytheistic world of antiquity, and its primary cultural center was the monastery. Politically, the early medieval world was ruled by kings rather than the emperors of antiquity and government itself was understood in more personal terms. In part building upon the traditions of the early medieval world, the later Middle Ages differed markedly from the early medieval world. City life revived in the later Middle Ages and population and the economy grew dramatically. The later Middle Ages experienced a commercial revolution that revived international trade, which had virtually disappeared in the early medieval world. The use of the written word throughout society expanded in the later Middle Ages, new institutions of learning such as the university were established, and the institutions of Church and state grew in power and organization.

What can the early medieval world teach us about our modern world? Are there any similarities?

It has often been said that the past is a foreign country, and this is no more true than in regard to the early medieval world, which had a worldview that is fundamentally different than the worldview held today. Having said that, it must be noted that the early medieval world has much to teach us today. People of the early medieval period left an important legacy in terms of spirituality and religious belief and practice that can provide comfort and important insights to many people today. Early medieval rulers faced numerous challenges of governance and had to create new institutions of government that could help guide modern political leaders. The early medieval world was also one of surprising diversity as peoples with a wide range of cultural practices, languages, and traditions came to create a new social order out of the old Roman Empire, and lessons in our own increasingly diverse world could be learned from our medieval forebears.

What do you think is a common misunderstanding about the early medieval world?

The most common misunderstanding of the early Middle Ages is that it was a “dark age.” Although the early medieval world suffered decline in population, city life, and other areas, it was a period of important cultural transformation and growth. During this period, Europe underwent a process of Christianization, and it was during the early Middle Ages that the Christian, Roman, and Germanic traditions merged to lay the foundation for later European civilization. Important institutions such as the papacy and monasticism took shape during this period, and influential Christian and encyclopedic texts were written. There was also a series of cultural revivals, most notably the Carolingian Renaissance in the eighth to ninth centuries, that produced important artistic works and literary texts. The Carolingian revival was most important for the later development of European civilization. Many ancient classical and Christian works were copied and preserved by Carolingian authors who also wrote works of history, biography, theology, and law. Carolingian artists lavishly illuminated these texts with dazzling images that borrowed from earlier Christian and Roman works of art.

What are some of the contributions the early medieval world gave to us?

The early medieval world has left a number of important cultural artifacts. The Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels are two beautifully illuminated manuscripts from the early Middle Ages, and Carolingian artists produced a number of equally beautiful illuminated manuscripts. The standard version of what became the Catholic Bible took shape during the early medieval world. Carolingian scholars preserved much of ancient classical and Christian literature; the earliest surviving copies of nearly all ancient Latin manuscripts were made by Carolingian scholars in the ninth century. The Code of Justinian, which shaped European legal and judicial traditions, and the Rule of Saint Benedict, which defined the practice of religious life into the modern era, were creations of the early medieval world. Charlemagne’s chapel at Aachen, Theodoric’s mausoleum, and the Hagia Sophia are among the great architectural monuments created during the early Middle Ages.

In working on the book, did you discover anything particularly surprising or interesting?

One thing I discovered is the wide range of truly interesting personalities that lived during this period. The people of the early medieval world are a fascinating group of scholars, holy men and women, and political leaders. Many of them are interesting because of their courage and integrity and others are interesting—perhaps more interesting—because of their ruthlessness and quest for power at any cost. I was also surprised by the incredible creativity of the period during which society went through a profound transformation. New forms of religious life developed, and kings and other political leaders devised new ideas about political power and created new forms of government. Patterns of daily life were transformed and new social institutions developed. And although I have long known this, I am continually surprised by the literary and artistic creativity of this period that includes the great achievements of the Church fathers, Carolingian Renaissance scholars, and many other early medieval writers and scholars.

Michael Frassetto, PhD, teaches medieval and world history at the University of Delaware, La Salle University, and Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. He has published numerous articles on medieval religious and social history. Frassetto is author of The Great Medieval Heretics: Five Centuries of Religious Dissent and editor of Christian Attitudes toward the Jews in the Middle Ages: A Casebook and Heresy and the Persecuting Society in the Middle Ages: Essays on the Work of R.I. Moore

Affirmative Action Survives to See Another Day—For Now…

The following is a piece from James A. Beckman, author of the forthcoming 2014 title Affirmative Action: Contemporary Perspectives and Associate Professor of Legal Studies at the University of Central Florida

The dust has settled from yet another constitutional battle involving the war over affirmative action in America. The United States Supreme Court rendered the latest of a long line of decisions spanning over three decades on Monday, June 24, 2013, again placing restrictions (but not outright eliminating) the practice of affirmative action in the case of Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin. Proponents of affirmative action can take solace in the fact that the concept of affirmative action still survives—at least until the next major challenge. In ruling in Fisher, the Court declined to overturn any of its landmark cases of affirmative action—like Grutter v. Bollinger in 2003 and Regents of the University of California v. Bakke in 1978—and continued to allow universities to use race in admissions decisions so long as no other “workable race-neutral alternatives would produce the educational benefits of diversity.”

The Supreme Court in Fisher, by a 7-1 ruling, avoided the most extreme path of entirely dismantling affirmative action, and instead opting for a “middle of the road” approach, which reversed the federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals (which had upheld the University of Texas affirmative action admission’s plan as constitutional) as not upholding the rigorous level of judicial review needed in race classification cases as the Supreme Court has previously mandated and required to be employed by courts reviewing these cases (as the Court said in Bakke in 1978 and Grutter in 2003), and remanding the case back to the lower courts for further review. 

 

Thus, while the Court reversed the lower federal court's decision as not meeting its exacting standards under “strict scrutiny,” the majority did however again decline to strike down the general practice of affirmative action as per se unconstitutional and refused to characterize the practice as no longer being needed in society. Indeed, going into the Fishercase, proponents of affirmative action were acutely aware that it was possible that a majority on the Court could have dismantled affirmative action outright, pronounced the complete prohibition on the use of race or ethnicity in admissions decisions (or related governmental actions), and declared America’s experiment with remedial race-conscious preferences to be at an end and no longer necessary in modern society.

There was nothing overly revolutionary or radical in today’s ruling, and the Court seems to reaffirm that diversity is a compelling governmental interest and that Bakke and Grutter decisions are still good law (despite Justice Scalia and Justices Thomas’ concurring opinions to the contrary). This alone should give some comfort to supporters of affirmative action—at least in the short term. Given that the Court has basically used the Fisher ruling to reaffirm its rules set out in Grutter—and specifically that “strict scrutiny” needs to be truly meaningful scrutiny, and not (as the Court says) “strict in theory and feeble in fact,” the standard for review in future cases will certainly need to be more exacting, and states will need to show that “no workable race-neutral alternatives would produce the educational benefits of diversity.” While this is a more exacting standard of review moving forward, the Court clearly did not decide that UT’s program in using race was unconstitutional. The decision also references and upholds the standards set forth in Bakke & Grutter—so Bakke and Grutter are still good law, and diversity in higher education still can be considered a permissible compelling governmental interest. The Court signaled that race based affirmative action plans can still be considered constitutional if implemented properly (and if no workable race neutral alternatives are available). 

Thus, the ruling in Fisher was a narrow one, saving the broader battle over affirmative action (and a possible final end point) for another day. However, while holding that affirmative action survives, the Supreme Court made clear that reviewing courts have the obligation to make their own independent judgments about whether the university’s critical mass determination is a valid one. That is, strict scrutiny requires real and meaningful searching inquiries on the part of the court; not deference to the institution at issue. Further, as diversity increases on campus, it should be harder for institutions to consider race and use affirmative action at all. 

Thus, through the settling haze, the practice of affirmative action still stands, alive, but battered. The practice has withstood the Court’s restrictions and caveats in such cases as the Regents of the University of California v. Bakke in 1978, Adarand v. Pena in 1995, Gratz v. Bollingerin 2003, Grutter v. Bollinger in 2003, and now Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin in 2013.  It is battered, bruised and wobbling—like a punch happy pugilist who is recoiling from one too many uppercuts to the jaw; but yet, still it stands. Weaker, more tempered, but still in the fight.  While judicial concepts like “strict scrutiny” have been further defined and the level of review has been increased, proponents of affirmative action can take solace in the fact that the concept of affirmative action still survives—at least until the next major challenge.

One final note: The next major challenge may not be too far off in the distance. The Supreme Court has already granted review of the next affirmative action case in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action by Any Means Necessary. The case will be argued at the Supreme Court in the Fall 2013 term. This case deals with the propriety and fate of state law bans on the practice of affirmative action. This case deals with the constitutionality of Michigan Proposal 2, which amended the Michiganstate constitution to prohibit (as a matter of state law) public institutions within the state from utilizing racial-preference in admissions, employment, and contracting. In the petition to the Supreme Court requesting review, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette stressed that he was not asking the Court to constitutionally dismantle affirmative action itself (as was a possibility leading up to the Fisher ruling), but rather whether state governments can decide to do so on their own. Thus, according to Michigan Attorney General Schuette, “this case presents the different issue whether a state has the right to accept this Court’s invitation in Grutter to bring an end to all race-based preferences.” This “invitation” is clearly a reference to Justice O’Connor’s language in Grutter that affirmative action should not be a permanent program and should have a logical end point, and that end point should be within the next quarter century from the Grutter decision (i.e., by 2028). The stage is already set for this next battle over affirmative action. Stay tuned in the Fall.  

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James A. Beckman (J.D., Ohio State,  LL.M. Georgetown University) is Associate Professor of Legal Studies at the University of Central Florida, where he also serves as the inaugural chair of the Department of Legal Studies. He is the author of Comparative Legal Approaches to Homeland Security and Anti-terrorism (2007) and Affirmative Action Now: A Guide for Students, Families, and Counselors (2006); he is also the General Editor of Affirmative Action: An Encyclopedia (2004). Before his entrance into academia in 2000, he served as an attorney-advisor for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms (ATF) at its headquarters in Washington, DC.  Among other awards, he was the recipient of the United States Department of Defense Meritorious Service Medal for his legal work as an active duty judge advocate from 1994–1998, and the Department of Justice Meritorious Service Award (1999) for legal work on behalf of the Department of Justice and ATF.