Igniting Imagination: Adam Bond

Adam Bond, PhD is Associate Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Baylor University. 

Teaching to unlock new abilities to see. Imagining new futures, building new worlds, seeing new possibilities can be incorporated into our classrooms if teachers can unshackle their own creativity. Bond reflects on a recent Wabash cohort experience which challenged participants to move past nostalgia and toward the challenge of shaping of new futures.

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SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome to Dialogue on Teaching, Wabash Center's podcast series. I am Nancy Lynn Westfield, Director of the Wabash Center. Paul Myrie is our sound engineer. It is my pleasure to welcome to the conversation Dr. Adam Bond. Dr. Bond is Associate Professor of Religion and African American Studies in the Department of Religion with Baylor University. Thank you, Adam, for being here. Hello. Oh,

SPEAKER_01 0:31

hello. Thank you so much for the invitation to join you at the table. I'm grateful to speak with you on this day.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

So you and I were recently in a conversation on imagination and future building or world building. So Willie Jennings and I gathered several faculty people together to talk about the notion of futuring, the notion of using imagination in times of trouble to imagine a different future. response to trouble, to imagine trouble in a different way, to imagine new futures. So I'm just going to say, I thought the conversation was terrific, right? It was wonderful. So I want to know what you thought about it. But then more importantly, how did it affect your teaching? How did it affect, you know, were you able to take any of the pieces back into your own classroom or back into your own teaching life?

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Yes. So I want to start by applauding you and Willie Jennings for really creating that space for us, for inviting the diverse group of people. We had an amazing time sharing in conversation, really thinking about the kinds of futures that we want to welcome, that we want to invite, that we want to work towards as a part of our sense of call, our sense of vocation. So thank you so much for inviting me to be a part of that group and that experience. What I took back with me in terms of into the classroom was something that I believe we all ought to have as a part of our understanding of what it means to be a teacher, and that is that our imaginations can really inform the work we do in the classroom, that we don't have to be restricted to traditional notions of how we prep for what we present and the ways in which we invite our students into deeper reflection and into deeper sharing, that we discover, I think, within our ways to reconnect to not just a sense of wonder that we might not have really felt or appreciated in these adult years that we had once as children, but that right now we can really tap into a sense of self that allows us to see ways in which we can build worlds, build futures, that we can participate in dialogues, that really invite us to imagine anew what the world can be. And so that was powerful. I came home and I immediately told my family. I said, boy, that experience unlocked something in me. And I can't go back now. I mean, I feel like I have three novels in me. I feel like I have... You know, some new classroom exercises. I feel like I have just some new ways of seeing how I can do my work well. So I really am grateful for that opportunity to be a part of that workshop.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

There's something, so Willie Jennings and I are working on the notion of seeing, just what you said. Who is a scholar who sees? Who is a scholar who's the artist, right? So to say we're kindling or rekindling the ability to see anew is so exciting to me because for many of us, either the doctoral program or citizenship in the institution has foreclosed on our ability to see or foreclosed on our ability to think of and imagine new futures. We just kind of accept that how things are and used to be will be how things continue and will be, but in the same contradictory moment as change is all around us.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Yes, yes. So I remember well the very first question I think I asked when we entered the room together. And that was, how do we reconcile the tension between nostalgia and imagining these new futures, building these new worlds? Because in many ways, we've been so informed by the past and we're not necessarily always sure what to do with the lessons of the past other than talk about the ways in which, boy, those were the good old days. And so when I think about even this moment in higher education, in some ways we have colleagues, we have departments, we have institutions as a whole that wish things were like they used to be when the world keeps saying, no, we're not going back. And so you can try to live there if you want, but you're going to be left behind. On the personal level, it's like, okay, the students that I have are not going to be the students that I was when I was in seminary and grad school and undergrad. There are phones, there are devices all around us. And so we can't go back. And so imagining that new uses for those devices, imagining new ways for students to engage in light of the current environment, the current events of the world. Those are all platforms, so to speak, for us to become better teachers. Those are all ways in which I think it is important for us to acknowledge where we are, but like you said, see what it is we can still become. and or dare I say should become if we want to make those kinds of ethical moves in terms of the way we teach.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

So I thought your question about nostalgia and the future of nostalgia right now was like right on target. I thought that question gathered up the reticence and the hesitation in the room, right? I thought you articulated what many of our colleagues were thinking. And even thinking, even pushing it Further than that, saying with my commitment of getting a PhD, I am now owed or have the privilege of keeping things the same because I finally got here and now it's going to be upended. We don't have any control over that, right? Yes, it has been upended, right? You do it. You don't have the privilege that scholars have had in the past in the larger society. But then I also thought, because we invited Clint Fluker, who's an archivist at Emory University, to come in. And Clint told us, as well as led us in activities, to say, you can't think about the future without thinking about the past, right? So Clint took the nostalgia away and gave us good memories and tech and and artifacts and memory as technology for the future not just romanticizing or nostalgicizing the past

SPEAKER_01 8:07

yes

SPEAKER_00 8:07

what was that move

SPEAKER_01 8:08

like for

SPEAKER_00 8:08

you

SPEAKER_01 8:09

oh so that move was amazing and and this is why i want to say that as a historian you know I spend so much time in the archives. I tell my 17-year-old daughter that my call is to speak with the ancestors on a daily basis in order to understand not just the world in which they live, but the world that they imagine for us. And so in light of those kinds of ways of understanding my work, for this amazing archivist and historian in his own right to come in and say the past is not just prologue, but it is an opportunity to leverage the ways we walk into the future was just, one, affirming, but two, powerful in terms of, yes, this is why I do this work, and this is what these resources can provide for us. So I loved... his activities, then I hope that he didn't trademark them because I want to at least try to do some work

SPEAKER_00 9:18

with those. I had the same impulse, right? I wrote down as much about how he did what he taught than what he taught. So, yeah. Tell our listeners what he did. Tell them the activity.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

So, I mean, a part of his activity was, and I hope I'm not spoiling it for the next group he's going to encounter, was that he gave us these scenarios in which we are people from the future who who live in a society and live in a dystopia that requires, if things are going to change, that requires that we go back to the past to see what resources can help us transform that present moment that we just left into the world that we believe it should be. And so he had all of these resources that he placed for each of the groups that he worked with, in front of us so that we could then see so one of the things for us was we had a quincy jones album we had this poster from a conference on on on black on the black world this international conference on the black world and so we were interpreting what do these resources how can they help us what what are the technologies um in terms of using these resources that can make Help us make the world better when we return. And that was, I mean, that was so powerful because we don't look at the archives that way. And I think as historian, as a historian, that yes, those are the kinds of resources and it's not just words. is what they point us to. It is the artifacts, the materials that they left behind for us that might point us in a direction that can tell us for, and please forgive me for my English, but it ain't got to be this way. And so from that, what then can we learn that can help us transform the world into that which we desire? I like to use the phrase, and I hope it caught on a little bit when I was serving as a pastor in a local congregation, but I like to use the phrase, how can we move the world in the right direction? And by that, I meant from the pulpit, and I still mean, how can we move the world in the direction of love? And I think that is a part of the question that that i like to answer as a historian going back into the archives and so i was really grateful for clint fluker's um activity and i again i'm workshopping that into what i think it can do for students in my classroom

SPEAKER_00 11:50

there was a way that as we were handling the literal materials that he gave us right the cookbooks the album covers the posters, all the different literal artifacts that he gave us, that I felt us begin to have a new sense of agency about the stories that would build our future, right? That the exercise itself, to me, instilled agency. Would you use the word agency? You know what I mean? There was something that happened within the group that was empowering. I didn't anticipate working with archives as being an empowering moment.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Yes, yes. Well... See, and I'm not going to talk about you. I think it's because you're not a historian. I

SPEAKER_00 12:33

am not. And I usually don't work with material culture in those ways, but I'm interested now.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

Yes. Yeah. No, I agree. It was empowering. It was a moment that really called on us to embrace that sense of agency. And what the groups did in return in terms of when we came back to have the larger conversation and groups shared what they talked through and experienced in working through that assignment. I mean, you just saw people come alive and become energized with, I mean, really the power of imagination. And so that was, I mean, that was just an experience. And so I wanna go back to thanking you because you and Willie curated, I think, and I use that word in so many ways because you all took us to an art museum as well. And so, or an art, oh, I can't remember. Gallery, we went to a gallery. Our gallery, excuse me, in our gallery. And just, I mean, we were immersed in ways in which people see the world differently, right? And so that gave us permission. Those spaces that you put us in and those conversations that you convened were just so wonderful in helping us tap into our own sense of imagination. I mean, even the way you started the whole process. I mean, we received from you all right from the start Ruha Benjamin's book, Imagination, a manifesto. And that work pushed the reader to make sense of the things that make us say, that ought to lead us to say, it ain't got to be this way. And so those, the whole experience was just, for lack of a better phrase, it was a moment of transformation.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

So we took very seriously the need to collaborate beyond our academic disciplines. So we went to the Black Arts in America gallery run by Najee Dorsey in Atlanta. And Najee brought three colleagues, three artists, to talk about how they depict and imagine art, I mean, the future in their artwork. So each of those artists brought pieces of art and carefully told us what what future they were depicting and why, how they imagined the future. So this is the thing that stopped me in my tracks, Adam, was it sounded like the same conversation we were having among scholars of religion and theology when we were talking to the artists. It was uncanny the way they talked about the future was almost exactly the same way we were struggling with and challenged to depict the future.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

Yes, yes. The conversation itself helped me see, one, or helped me feel a sense of solidarity with Black creatives, with creatives in general, but with Black creatives in particular, as to how they depicted the world that they want to see in their art, the world as is and the world that they want to see. it got me thinking just in terms of my scholarship that on some level, yes, I'm writing about the past, but I'm writing about the past in order to help people think about the world that we want to see. And so the ways they were talking about it, I mean, we had conversations that one artist, really, on some level, began to talk about the ethics of plagiarism. The

SPEAKER_00 16:46

use of artificial

SPEAKER_01 16:47

intelligence in his life. The use of artificial intelligence. And those conversations are conversations that we're having in the academy. And so it was eerie on some level that we're all thinking about some similar questions, but at the same time, it was... powerful from the standpoint of we do need to have some cross-disciplinary, interdisciplinary, cross-disciplinary conversations and transgress the boundaries of what we call scholarship to allow for us to engage with larger publics that can help us think about our own work, but we can also help them think about their work. So it was a great, it was a great moment for us. And I loved how pretty much all of the participants in our group were able to just really find some insights from that panel. One, but some even were cornered by the artists because the conversations were so rich and so meaningful. And some of the dialogue that skewed into, that teetered into debate was just that life-giving on some level.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Well, and the piece of the conversation after the conversation that I heard was when one artist was still challenging the other artists because they disagreed about, it wasn't a scholar disagreeing with the artists. It was two artists debating about the use of AI in artwork. And one was what I would call a purist saying, I would never use AI in my work. And the other one's saying, why not? it's still my work, right? And it sounded like what we talk about all the time in terms of writing. I mean, our medium is usually words and writing. They were talking about paints and sculpture and those kinds of things, but the questions were still the same.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

Still the same, still the same. And I mean, we could even just go beyond AI and just think about Well, I mean, we can stay in the realm, but think about the uses of technology in the classroom. There might be some purist voices who question how much technology we really need to be effective teachers and to invite students into deeper meaning through traditional modes of engagement and delivery. And or you have the quote unquote new school, if we were to talk in the language of hip hop, old school, new school, and you could talk about the ways in which people have really introduced technology as a teaching tool in ways that we would not have even imagined maybe even five to 10 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

So this conversation, so you have confided in me that this conversation on imagination didn't surface because I suspect it's always been there. You are now interested in writing novels, or at least you're reporting to the public and not just keeping it private that you are a historian, a scholar of religion and history who's now embarking on novel writing. So tell us about writing novels, Adam.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

Well, so I'll just say this. Sitting at the table with one of the activities that you all had us do in terms of writing a story, there were no limits on the kind of story we could tell and so on and so forth. We had magazines that we could use in terms of cutting out images and pasting them and presenting them as a part of our story. It took me back to fourth grade and Mrs. Navis's fourth grade elementary school class at West Ridge Elementary in Racing, Wisconsin. And it was one of those, oh, wow. I mean, you're telling me I can do what? And then to actually give myself to the activity, I came up with a short story that was, I mean, for me, such an eye-opening experience in terms of, oh, I have this in me. And there were words of affirmation and encouragement that suggested to me that, oh, this is something. Now, I mean, it was only probably 500 to maybe 800 words. I can't remember. I don't even think I reached 1,000. I might have. So I'm not saying that I'm Colson Whitehead or anyone else. But again, the activity allowed me to feel something that I have not necessarily felt in other modes of writing, at least over the last decade or so from pulpit or the academy.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

So you are espousing, aspiring to write these novels?

SPEAKER_01 22:05

I am open to potentially seeing where the story that I did in Atlanta with you, I'm curious where that can go, or to where just the other stories that I have in me might go. So I won't say I'm espousing or aspiring to just yet. but I would say that I am curious enough to explore it.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

And is that exploration a scholarly exploration? In doing that, have you left scholarship to go into a new realm and a new enterprise, or does it fold into your scholarly enterprise?

SPEAKER_01 22:49

I think it folds into my scholarship in this way. I think in as much as I can maximize all that is running around there in my mind, that it might unlock some other things that feed into the kinds of scholarship that I do. So since we are confessing something, I grew up reading comics. And so now even in their quote unquote graphic novel form, I still pick up several. And I remember being deeply inspired back in high school by the work of the illustrators and writers who helped produce the Milestone label of comics. The Milestone label was an imprint within the larger quote unquote DC Comics family with Superman and Batman and all of them. But Milestone had this large world of comics African-American, Latino, Latina superheroes who were doing their things in ways that you would not have seen Superman or Batman do. Stories that were not told in the larger family of DC Comics. And I remember feeling some sense of connection to the art, to the stories, And it was in that moment that I began to see how creative I could be. And so that kind of permission, so to speak, that was given by way of seeing those images and seeing those stories, so much so that after our time in Atlanta, I went out and looked to see where those books have gone and whatnot. And they actually have a set of compendium that bring back those stories. And so I went out and bought them and said, let me read and explore and see what I can learn from and how I can be immersed back into these stories of world building. And so that's Again, you kind of opened up a door that I've been willing to walk through as a part of the conversations that we had.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

So the Wabash Center is starting a book series. We're getting ready to animate it. It's been on the burner for a while. We're bringing it forward called Array, the Array book series. And it'll be a multi-genre book series. And I am hoping, hoping, hoping that graphic novels are a part of our book series. So when we get the infrastructure put together, I mean, you can write for our book series anytime you want, Adam, but if you give us a graphic novel, I will be very, very happy. Just keep it in mind. No, I'll keep it in mind.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 25:55

Thank you so much for this conversation. Please come back anytime.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

Thank you. It has been a real pleasure. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 26:03

To our listeners, the Wabash Center website is the place. Look on our website for details concerning our hybrid workshops, our writing colloquies and roundtables, concerning resources for teaching in the teaching life, including our blogs and our journal on teaching, as well as our re-granting program. A special thanks to podcast producer Rachel Mills and the music which frames our podcast of the original composition of Paul Murray. Wabash Center for more than 30 years is exclusively funded by Lilly Endowment Incorporated. And we are out. How was that, Paul?