Into the Pilgrimverse - A Style Switch

I’ve written a number of academic articles. I’m so grateful for the editors and anonymous peer-reviewers who have given of their time and expertise to help refine those arguments. These articles inevitably use scholarly terms as short-hand pointers to discussions that are known in the field of study. That’s why articles in peer-reviewed journals can read like insider talk to any curious readers from outside of academia. And my students in a general education class at Biola University are invested in the biblical and spiritual goals but not necessarily in the jargon that accompanies specialist theological disciplines.

One advantage I have for my students is the interdisciplinary focus of my work. I work at the intersection of theology, ethics, history, literature and studies of material culture – particularly book studies. This means surprising connections rather than deep disciplinary disputes tend to drive my writing. Also, some of my work takes the form of commentary and textual interpretation – familiar ground for the Christian college student discovering their faith as the creature of the divine word.

Still, academics know how to write dully. With Into the Pilgrimverse, I challenged myself to write differently. The goal was to give my students insights in to reception of the class text without being too stuffy. If I haven’t managed this perfectly, the classes of Spring and Fall ’24 helped me avoid the worst of my verbosity in proof-reading and giving feedback on my draft chapters.

The big stylistic switch was for me to imitate John Bunyan’s writing by framing the chapters as dialogues, complete with what today we’d call a script/screenplay designation of each speaker by name for each of their “lines.” The book doesn’t have the action of Christian’s journey – my reception studies are, after all, pretty sedate – but I did put in some ringside seats for Christian’s battle with Apollyon in chapter 3 on Graphic Novels.

I’m playing around with ideas for a next book and doing some reading across a literary genre that might fit over the winter break. I hope to begin writing that book proposal in the New Year.