Welcome to the homepage of Jaime Wright:
I am currently enrolled in a cooperative PhD program with the Graduate Theological Union and UC Berkeley in the area of Ethics and Social Theory.
I hope to have the general layout of the site changed soon and post some of my older writing for Newtopia Magazine (now defunct) here.
The best ways of contacting me will be through the olios site or through my myspace page.
I hope to have some more writing coming up on religion and culture within the next few months.
11.09.06
Get some Olios
Ok, it's been way too long since I've touched my little homepage here. The latest is a new little project I'm participating in with one of my co-editors from comfusion review. This online combo of articles, reviews, blogs, etc. is picking up where comfusion left off. I'll also be jumping into the fracas on various political and cultural issues on a blog collective done in relationship to Olios Online.
Come by and check it out.
04.29.05
Body Modification as Ideology (revised)
Recently, I attended the Body Modification Conference: Mark II at Macquarie University in North Ryde, Australia (just outside of Sydney) where I presented a revised version of "Body Modification as Ideology." I'm posting a link to a .pdf version if anyone is interested.
The conference itself was great. Overall, the presentations and the key note speakers were insightful and informative. (There were a few letdowns, but they are not worth mentioning here.) It was a great opportunity to come into contact with other people with similar interests. I definitely would encourage others to go, especially if they feel that their perspective on the body and body modification is one that is in the minority.
03.21.05
Boobs, Juice, and Hook Ups: Congress’s obsession with controversy over content
If you are a U.S. citizen, nevermind the war in Iraq (or the rebuilding of Afghanistan or peace between Israel and Palestine), nevermind the growing deficit, nevermind unemployment, Medicaid or Social Security ... All you need to think about are Baseball's steroid problem and the Terri Schiavo case (or if that's all too much, then just default over to the Michael Jackson case and the case of Scott Peterson).
More importantly though, what the hell is our Congress doing getting involved in these matters? Democrats and Republicans alike are neglecting the important issues and focusing on easy debates that will garner the support of social conservatives and over-worried mothers and fathers. Now, all these people deserve to be listened to and should be given attention by their representatives, but the fact that Congress chooses these little “soft-ball” issues to grandstand on is ridiculous. Congress seemingly stops its regular duties in order to address purity in baseball and the case of Terri Schiavo, but what about a special session to address genocide in Darfur? After all, the Bush administration has declared officially that genocide is occurring.
These “soft-ball” issues, just like the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2005 that passed last month in the House of Representatives seek out easy targets that favor controversy over content [if you google this bill, you will find out how popular this is among many social conservatives and Christian organizations]. This push for decency, for example, surrounding the disclosure of Janet Jackson's areola and nipple--not breast (breasts are no big deal: remember Lil' Kim's pasties?), but areola and nipple--the very literal image of what sustains many of us early in life, the very thing we suck milk from is somehow dirty and inappropriate, even corrupting (try that issue on for understanding what feminists mean by patriarchy). Nevermind grown men engaged in helmet-to-helmet combat because violence is somehow symbolic of our national struggle and each football player (at the Superbowl) embodies that ideal of great American individualism and go-getter-ness, but, ahh, a woman's nipple is enough to tear the very fabric of our nation asunder.
It's this same mass distraction that stretches from decency in the media to regulating sports to intervening in a husband's (Mr. Schiavo) decision to have his wife (Terri) disconnected from her feeding tube (after 16 years), rather than taking on issues that actually matter--in terms of domestic, economic, and foreign policy--is what makes me absolutely disgusted with our government, right now. And usually, I'm pretty middle of the road--almost to the point of a complete lack of opinion.
It's not that these issues are completely insignificant, or that they shouldn't be discussed and argued over, but when they take over the complete attention of the body that is elected to govern our nation, it's an example of a complete dereliction of duty. The cases of baseball and Jackson's breast are more appropriate to discuss over dinner at home between parents and children than in Congress, which, it appears, has thrown more difficult issues on the back burner.
In the case of Terri Schiavo, this is a matter to be debated within churches, temples, and mosques, (and more importantly between Mr. Schiavo and Terri’s parents) but for the state of Florida and then the national Congress to intervene is appalling in a time where attention would be more constructive in other areas.
And then there is the media. Even if Congress is working on other things ... we're not hearing about it. Something disturbing that I heard the other night on the local news was that the San Francisco Chronicle chooses issues popular with people for their front-page story, rather than what might be important for our society as a whole. They might as well be called the SF Enquirer, if that is their approach to news. The case in point was their frequent use of the Scott Peterson scandal. Talk about the opiate of the people! If for any reason our congress persons might be thinking with the same logic--that is, give the people what they are most comfortable with rather than pushing our society to an ever more progressive vision of human rights, peace, and prosperity--then all we are being fed is the junk food of our popular hysteria: scandal and quick fixes.
12.05.04
Want to know a little bit about the Religious Marketplace? Check out my latest article on www.newtopiamagazine.net. The article briefly introduces and describes the supply-side argument on why religion and spirituality are so prominent (and some might say dominant after the 2004 presidential election) in the United States.
09.14.04
It has been a little over a year since I updated this website. Although, I had planned to redo the look and feel of the website, along the lines of the splash page, it hasn't quite culminated in a finished product yet. Anyway, in the meantime, I had another article published with the online culture and politics site: www.newtopiamagazine.net. This article is titled: Body Modification as Ideology. Here is the lead: "Does getting a tattoo or piercing constitute an ideology? Perhaps not, if an individual modified his or her body in total isolation from society. However, when people modify their bodies by tattooing, piercing or scaring (and, more recently, nullification) they do so with the knowledge of - or in the indirect presence of - a large and rather loose network of people that are also modified. When such a network, however loose, exists, it becomes a noticeable social phenomenon that must be addressed."
I hope to get some free time and some help from an overworked friend to further develop this site before the end of 2004. Please, stay tuned and email me if any of the topics on this site are of interest. Thanks.
09.01.2003
For anyone interested in Protestantism in America check out an article of mine that was recently published
online at
www.newtopiamagazine.net. The article, "I Am My Own Religion," discusses the
Universal Life Church as a form of streamlined Protestantism in America.
07.13.03
I am currently studying for my master's degree in comparative religious studies with a focus on Religion in America. My
approach is not one of new-age spirituality, or of Christian apologetics, but one that attempts to find common patterns of
belief that permeate American life (the American Dream, The Pursuit of Happiness, etc.). Some of these structures
have roots that reach back to the Puritans and the
Penitentes, to ideals of the Enlightenment and the Great Awakenings (this links to a brief history of the First Great Awakening). There are so many factors that lie beneath the
surface of our daily assumptions and our worldviews (political, social, economical, religious, etc.). Regardless of our explicit stance on "religion" or
"spirituality," there are always tacit components that inform our beliefs. It is this set of tacit components that
compose an individual's faith. These tacit components are buried deep within an individual's culture, so that on a certain level
of abstraction many Americans share a common religion even if our explicit stances vary from extremely liberal to extremely
conservative. This underlying faith in certain cultural values composes one of the necessary parts to all human life: religion.
Not in the explicit sense, but in a more abstract and universal sense. As every culture has music, language, political structures,
so does every culture have religious practices, or practices that are either explicitly sacred or implicitly agreed upon
daily habits.
Beyond my interest in religion in America, for the past 8 years I was editor-in-chief of Comfusion Magazine. Recently, we decided to chalk it up as a good experience. Many of my articles and
interviews on this jaimewright.ws are pieces that I wrote while working as editor and contributor to Comfusion.
Please, stick around and explore the site, maybe email me with any suggestions you might have or problems with some of
the pages. Especially, email me if you have any similar interests or ideas about religion, or have become familiar with
any interesting movements that have officially or unofficially taken on a community feel with the capacity to take the place
of more institutionalized religions.
Thank you,
Jaime Wright
