Hello! My name is Scott Bailey, and I’m one of the new Praxis Fellows. I am also a Ph.D. student in Religious Studies, writing a dissertation on vulnerability as a locus of dogmatic reflection. Taking a cue from Brené Brown’s work on vulnerability, I’m asking what it means to think through the vulnerability of Christ, leading us to think of the vulnerability of God and of humanity. Much of this is done within the context of 20th Century Protestant theology, with a particular focus on Eberhard Jüngel’s theology.

I am also avidly interested in technology, though, both inside and outside the classroom. For the past three years, I was the Teaching + Technology Support Partner for the Department of Religious Studies, and helped faculty and grad students learn to use and incorporate different applications into their teaching practice. Of particular interest were applications like WordPress and NowComment. I applied to Praxis in order to keep pushing further, to learn about the what makes some of these applications work, and to learn more broadly about the world of Digital Humanities. From just a bit of exposure to HTML/CSS, I’ve already found that the concrete character of writing code is a welcome balance to the often abstract and speculative questions in theological ontology with which I am concerned. I look forward to working with the other Praxis Fellows and the rest of the Scholars’ Lab in the year to come.