Sharing Our Knowledge: Feminist Collaborations across Generations

I am a firm believer in the power of storytelling. I am also an advocate for going against the grain. On the first day of my Introduction to Bible classes, for example, I compare the power of biblical storytelling to Louise Leakey's narrative-focused toilet paper roll exercise—a less normative approach, to be sure, but one that nevertheless, perhaps in "being different," sparks student interest in the power of narration. Throughout the exercise, I follow Leakey in her unraveling of the relationship between stories and Homo sapiens development. As my student volunteers unravel a toilet paper roll as much as they can from one side of the classroom to the other, I recite Leakey's words: "If there are 400 sheets of tissue paper in the roll, then the very first life in the oceans is seen at sheet 240."¹ I then follow this with a question: When do you think Homo sapiens enter the sheeted time line? After students share their thoughts, I explain that, according to Leakey, "our story and place on the time line as upright walking apes begins only in the last half of the very last sheet." What makes the human story different from other stories, however, is the rate at which Homo sapiens have diversified. Leakey, moreover, credits narration for much of this; our consciousness, she explains—and the stories that we develop from and in relation to that consciousness—has advanced our "tool kit at unprecedented levels."²

The Bible, to date, remains the best-selling collection of stories of all time, and highlights all the more how stories create worlds. Biblical texts, put simply, carry a particular type of power; for many, they tell readers who they can and cannot be, who does and does not matter, or even who has the right to speak. Yet while my entry into the academic conversation is through biblical studies, perhaps the Bible has taken up enough space. Perhaps it is time for us to share our own narrations in hope of a more inclusive, productive, and collaborative academic future. As David Gunn and Danna Nolan Fewell write on the Bible and storytelling more broadly:

biblical stories, like stories everywhere, can powerfully shape people's lives—even when the story may seem innocuous. We can think of stories in alternative ways. Stories order and reorder our experience; that is to say, they reveal the way things are in the real world. They reflect a given culture. Alternatively, stories may be thought to create the real world. They are "performative" rather than simply explanatory. They give meaning to life, implicitly making proposals for thought and action which are then embodied in a re-created world. Not only that, by they can become "policemen" of that world. They "keep us in line and tend to make us more like our neighbors."³

While I am not making the claim that I carry the same power as biblical literature (although I wonder if some people should), I remain grateful for Feminist Studies in Religion, Inc. (FSR), for inviting scholars to share their stories, and to consider in doing so how such stories might contribute to the production of knowledge within the academy. The following narration is my own and stems in large part from a Society of Biblical Literature panel discussion held in Denver, Colorado, in November 2018.

Framing My Storytelling

Upon joining FRS's "sharing our knowledge" conversation, I was asked to consider what I wish I had known earlier in my academic career—what, for instance, I might tell my former self if I could converse with her. Having earned my doctorate in May 2017, that former self for me is a graduate student. Thus, the questions rolled in: Who was I as a graduate student? What was I feeling? What did I wish I knew? In pondering these questions, I happened to find an email I sent to a friend during my first semester of doctoral work. An excerpt from that email attests well to my affect at the time. And, to...