What's your dream degree? Anywhere, anyone...

[Yetanotherdegree]

If you were guaranteed admission and $ was not an issue, where would you want to go and what would you want to study? Who's your dream POI?

I suppose in a different world, I would want a PhD from Durham or Oxford/Cambridge. No specific POI for those places, but I love the idea of several years of study and life in an English University town.

I'm married with small kids so picking up and moving isn't going to happen. I'm very fortunate in that we live just a few miles from an excellent Div School, so no complaints here, but my fantasy escape degree is the UK PhD

You?

[Balatro]

I'm torn on returning for a PhD, maybe one day but my diocese paid the leftover for my MDiv (with a generous enough stipend). In agreement they asked me to commit to three years in the diocese. Fortunately as well, my Bishop let me postpone it for a year due to a fellowship so I have no complaints.

 

Dream job: College chaplain at a small LAC in the Midwest (hello Iowa!).

[11Q13]

It would be the resources of Harvard, the combined faculties of Notre Dame, the Harvard Divinity faculty of the ~1970-90s (before Stendahl retired, after Levenson joined, if there actually was any overlap), Princeton Seminary in the Metzger era, and be located on the campus of UC Berkeley (along with Danny Boyarin)...and throw in EP Sanders for good measure.

 

...a bit more dreamy than you were probably looking for

[Josh J.]

Ethics with Hauerwas at Duke would be really cool.....so would American Religious History with Paul Conkin at Vanderbilt, but he's an emertis now.

[Samahito]

PhD at either of these: Indiana U Religious Studies , HDS with Eck, Berkeley or UCLA Buddhist Studies, U Chicago with Doniger and Collins, or Cornell South Asian Studies with Blackburn (top choice). I'm waiting out M.A. decisions ATM, so I plan to apply to all of these when I finish the M.A. (if/when I get accepted).

 

Dream job: FT TT at a community college. I came up through an amazing CC and it changed my life. 

Edited February 9, 2013 by Samahito

[taycross]

Ethics with Hauerwas at Duke would be really cool.....so would American Religious History with Paul Conkin at Vanderbilt, but he's an emertis now.

From what I hear, Hauerwas is retiring at the end of the year. Though that would be wicked cool. Personally, a PhD at Notre Dame under Brian Daley and/or Cyril O'Regan would be glorious.

[Therewillbeluke]

So tough! Either the Academy (POI: Plato), or The University of Paris (POI: Thomas Aquinas).

[indefiniteintegral]

From what I hear, Hauerwas is retiring at the end of the year. Though that would be wicked cool. Personally, a PhD at Notre Dame under Brian Daley and/or Cyril O'Regan would be glorious.

Unfortunately, you're correct. Hauerwas plans to retire after Spring 2013.

[Seatbelt Blue]

I'd love to have been at KUL when a young priest named Karol Wojtyla was teaching philosophy.

[Jcosta]

What? Hauerwas is retiring?? Noooooooooooooo........!!! 

 

I thought I'd have at least a semester with him (assuming I got in)!!

 

Now who will write that stellar big-name reference when it's PhD time?

 

Sad news. Still great people there though, and certainly a solid, top-notch program.

Edited February 11, 2013 by Jcosta

[Yetanotherdegree]

What? Hauerwas is retiring?? Noooooooooooooo........!!!    I thought I'd have at least a semester with him (assuming I got in)!!   Now who will write that stellar big-name reference when it's PhD time?   Sad news. Still great people there though, and certainly a solid, top-notch program.

Well, Hauerwas is retiring but not disappearing. He'll be around for at least a couple of years in a senior/emeritus role. So that "stellar big-name reference" might still be possible

[Yetanotherdegree]

I'd love to have been at KUL when a young priest named Karol Wojtyla was teaching philosophy.

What does a retired pope do in retirement anyway? Maybe a nice senior academic appointment is exactly what he's looking for...

[Balatro]

According to their PR guy, he'll be moving into a monastery and dedicating his life to prayer and reflection.

 

I suspect Alzheimer's or some other mental illness is forcing him to resign.

 

The conspiracy theorist are going off about anything from the Illuminati, to the Catholic Church green-lighting homosexual priests and/or female priests and Benedict not wanting his named attached.

[Seatbelt Blue]

I doubt it's Alzheimer's, but it could be. I deeply suspect it's because it's a job he never wanted which he didn't expect to hold for so long; he picked his name in large part because he expected a relatively brief papacy, and has no interest in being pope until he's 93. At this point, he'll have been pope just under eight years, which is about the length of the last Pope Benedict's papacy.

 

This is a guy who tried to resign from active life when John Paul II was still kickin', and wanted to retire in 2005 and go write books for the rest of his life. And then they went and made him pope. And God dammit, he gave it his all, and now he's 85, tired, using a wheelchair on occasion, missing major liturgies now and then, and I think he just wants to go home. 

[Therewillbeluke]

I doubt it's Alzheimer's, but it could be. I deeply suspect it's because it's a job he never wanted which he didn't expect to hold for so long; he picked his name in large part because he expected a relatively brief papacy, and has no interest in being pope until he's 93. At this point, he'll have been pope just under eight years, which is about the length of the last Pope Benedict's papacy.

 

This is a guy who tried to resign from active life when John Paul II was still kickin', and wanted to retire in 2005 and go write books for the rest of his life. And then they went and made him pope. And God dammit, he gave it his all, and now he's 85, tired, using a wheelchair on occasion, missing major liturgies now and then, and I think he just wants to go home. 

 

A wise analysis Seatbelt Blue. How you put it, Benedict's situation seems somewhat analagous to that of Rowan Williams to me: an academic placed in a position of power in a tumultuos time when they really feel more at home in the university than the cathedral. Interesting how they both have stepped down so close to each other.

[Seatbelt Blue]

Yeah, Benedict never had a whole lot of experience as a pastor, and was always much more the academic theologian. He's always been in positions where his job has been the articulation of ideas, and once he became pope, much more was asked of him. He did his best, and I think he's going to go down as, say, a Lyndon Johnson of the papacy. Grand ambitions beyond his reach, a good man who made questionable decisions, but who always sought after the good.

[Body Politics]

I'd love to study with Richard Horsley, though he's never taken on doctoral students. And, since we're dreaming, I'd like the school to not be in Boston, but rather somewhere else---wherever my wife wants to live next. (She's incredibly supportive but I do feel a little guilty for dictating her next home based on my school...again.)

[MsBOOM]

PhD in Religious Pluralism at Georgetown University - hands down.

[Seatbelt Blue]

PhD in Religious Pluralism at Georgetown University - hands down.

What exactly would that entail?

[MsBOOM]

What exactly would that entail?

 

From what I've gotten through their website and talking to a professor there, they're interested in religious ethics/pluralism/tolerance and the like. From what I know, you pick two religious traditions (IE: I really want to work between Islam and Judaism), and figure out ways that these two religious traditions can get along, have interfaith dialogue, work for social justice, and through through conflict - and why these traditions should do such a thing.

Edited February 15, 2013 by MsSarahBOOM

[indefiniteintegral]

From what I've gotten through their website and talking to a professor there, they're interested in religious ethics/pluralism/tolerance and the like. From what I know, you pick two religious traditions (IE: I really want to work between Islam and Judaism), and figure out ways that these two religious traditions can get along, have interfaith dialogue, work for social justice, and through through conflict - and why these traditions should do such a thing.

That sounds wonderful!

[MsBOOM]

That sounds wonderful!

 

 

I know! It's totally my dream degree... now I'm just hoping everything here at HDS and my life with my significant other works out so I can pursue such degree... haha

Edited February 19, 2013 by MsSarahBOOM

[newenglandshawn]

Now that I've had time to think about it, I have realized that my dream program would be studying the theology of the Hebrew Bible (specifically the prophets) under Abraham Heschel. Truly inspiring! But I would have liked to study under him in Boston, rather than going to New York!

[toby42]

Dream: Oxford in the 40s, Metzger/Lewis, Textual Criticism

 

Reality: ND, VanderKam/Daley, Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity

[taycross]

Some sort of joint program between Université Catholique de Lyon and Institut Catholique de Paris in the late 40's to study with Henri de Lubac and Jean Daniélou would have been neat.