Well, I survived another challenging quarter. This was my first one as a Teaching Assistant at UCLA and it took some getting used to balancing teaching responsibilities, my own research, and family life. Teaching took the bulk of my time this quarter. Though I know this is a life long struggle for academics, I will be trying some tricks as time goes by for better balancing.
Aside from the time management challenge, teaching Western Civ this quarter was a fulfilling experience. I had a great bunch of students who asked interesting questions and offered creative insights when reading ancient texts. And it was, of course, a great learning experience for me to think synthetically about a vast span of history. Puts things in perspective. I’m looking forward to doing the same class with a different professor next quarter, since it will have some continuity but also allow for filling in a few gaps that the other class didn’t cover.
I finished up a paper for the end of the quarter in Bartchy’s Paul of Tarsus seminar. I decided to do Paul and empire, then I narrowed down into First Thessalonians. I did some work with social identity in First Thessalonians, as well as imperialism and eschatology. That, too, was a learning experience. I feel like I’m an archaeologist on a long, tedious dig. Each paper reveals a little tiny bit more that I hadn’t noticed before. I really appreciate the way Douglas Campbell put it in his recent tome: “And as I began to try to write, a frustrating experience began to unfold — repeatedly. I would begin to articulate my concerns as best I could, painfully compose a chapter or two of prose, and then the argument would break down. It was as if a wave would run each time a little further up the beach before it would break — which it always did — and run back to sea” (xxv). Not that I presume to be writing something something of the magnitude of Campbell’s work, but the dissertation I have in mind has to deal with some very nebulous concepts and methods. It’s a very slow process trying to get a handle on them.
Next quarter, I’ll be doing a graduate seminar with Ronald Mellor on Roman Religion. That should be a fun class with all my colleagues in the ancient field at UCLA (many of us are TAing together) and a couple other Bartchy students. I’ve been getting interested in exploring voluntary associations, so I think I might do a paper in that area for Mellor’s seminar. I’m gearing up for it by reading Philip Harland’s new book, kindly sent along to me by T & T Clark for review (Thanks, Abby!!).
