The summer 2023 adventures of Associate Professor of English Jack Dudley, Ph.D., featured events of significance to Mount St. Mary’s mission.
In June, Dudley attended the Veritas Scholars Summit, hosted by the Veritas Forum, an interdenominational Christian nonprofit that seeks to create space for discussions about truth and the place of religion in a contemporary college setting.
A week later, he participated in the first Scholars Plenary Program, held by the Christian Poetics Initiative (CPI), a group that brings together Christian academics in the fields of literature and theology. Dudley is also a member of the CPI’s planning committee.
The Veritas Scholars Summit, held in Park City, Utah, provided an opportunity to connect with like-minded people in academia as well as to recharge and reflect on what really matters in one’s career.
“[The conference is] designed to bring together, mentor, and care for Christian faculty members, and it really succeeded in doing just that. I thought it was going to be saying that to serve Christ we had to be successful and publish a lot, but it was much more focused on caring for yourself, taking time off on the Sabbath, treating your students with dignity and kindness, and caring for one another,” shared Dudley.
After enjoying a few days of inspiration—and phenomenal mountain biking—in Utah, Dudley was off to Yale University to share his talents at the CPI Plenary. While there, he sat on a panel regarding an issue of a journal called Christianity & Literature, to which Dudley and several other members contributed. He also led a workshop called “Work in Progress,” which helped participants reflect on their work and describe the crossover of their interests in Christianity and poetry.
“Working with this group has especially made me think about what Christian making is. In other words, how is poesis (or making) fundamentally Christian and what would Christian ‘making’ look like, what kinds of art and culture would it produce?” he queried.
Commenting on the benefit of attending both conferences and how they related to his work as a professor at the Mount, Dudley noted the common theme of our shared human dignity in both. “The emphasis [Veritas placed] on your dignity not coming from your accomplishments really challenged my views about what success means. God loves you unconditionally regardless of your successes. And I’ve been especially thankful for how broad CPI’s definition of Christian poetics has been, a definition that is inclusive, open, nonjudgmental and welcoming.”