Good day, Feministe readers! My name is Sam, I blog at the Xyre, and I am absolutely tickled as punch to be guest blogging here for the next two weeks. The guest bloggers so far this summer have been terrific writers with some interesting things to say, and I hope I can live—or at least blog—up to their examples.
Obligatory, extremely condensed information about me: I am a twenty-odd single queer Jewish MTF living in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, where I am a grad student by day and multi-interested nerd by night, or whenever I have time left over. The word in days gone by for someone achieved in a wide variety of subjects was polymath, but for the most part, my achievements are as yet mere aspirations.
My major area of interest is ancient religion and the development of religions, which is essentially my primary topic of research in grad school. I am especially interested in ancient Israelite religion, early Rabbinic Judaism, the birth of Christianity, and the interactions between these latter two and Hellenistic philosophy (especially Stoicism) in the greater Greco-Roman world in the first few centuries of the Common Era. But I also sustain interests in technology and open-source programming, current politics, ancient and modern languages, public transportation systems, and basically anything else. Yeah, I’m easy. If it’s interesting—which pretty much everything is—then I’m interested in it.
I’m planning a number of posts on sexuality and gender in Judaism, from both religious and cultural perspectives, with a special focus on gender identity as an emerging issue that mainstream Judaism has not really dealt with at all yet. But for the most part I’m more or less going to take the next few weeks as they come, and write about whatever strikes my fancy when my fancy is struck. Interesting things have been tending to happen with great abandon in my life recently—I just got back from a long road trip around the United States and Canada—so I’m thinking that this isn’t going to be a problem.
In closing for right now, let me extend my welcome to the other current guest bloggers, as well as my thanks to Jill and the rest of the Feministe crowd for this opportunity!
As a fellow “multi-interested nerd” (tho’ I usually go with ‘geek’), I’m intrigued to see what you end up talking about. Thanks for guesting.
rock on sam! i just finished readind Da Vinci Code and i’m actually really interested in the start of religions and stuff so i’m cyced 2 c wut u’ll write about
nerds/geeks rule
peace and love
kass<3
Hi Sam. See you Friday :)
-Jenni
Sam! How did you manage not to tell me about this gig? Congratulations!
Looking forward to what you put out for Feministe.
Just wanted to say your photographs from your road trip – even the few I saw on the main page – are beautiful! Look forward to reading your posts.
Welcome! I for one have an interest in Judaism and gender identity, as I’m a transwoman who has in the past came really close to converting. Its fascinating to read the various statements on transsexual converts by the various US denominations, and realise just how much dependent on gender conversion to Judaism is-unlike, say, someone who converts to Christianity. I guess I’m also trying to give a hint about what you should write about!
Dear Sam, Would you consider writing something about tattooing in the Jewish tradition. Maybe you could come up with a feminist angle.
http://mikeb302000.wordpress.com/2008/07/17/tattoos-and-the-urban-legend/
Oh, goody, I’m relatively new to this blog, so I like starting with someone new.
One question, though: MTF? I googled it and got
Definitions of MTF on the Web:
* The ratio of the image amplitude to the object amplitude as a function of sinusoidal frequency variation in the object.
http://www.qclabs.net/glossary.htm
* A Military Treatment Facility refers to any of several medical centers administered by the Department of Defense.
http://www.polytrauma.va.gov/POLYTRAUMA/definitions.asp
* modulation transfer function
terra.nasa.gov/Brochure/Sect_9-1.html
* The MTF describes how much a piece of optical equipment blurs the image of an object. The standard test is to see how well alternating white and black stripes show up (that is, their contrast, the difference between the whitest white and the blackest black) in the image, depending on how finely …
http://www.nacinc.com/support/glossary-of-terms/
* Medical treatment facility. A medical center, hospital, clinic or other facility that is authorized to provide medical, dental, or veterinary care.
civpers.amedd.army.mil/glossary.htm
* Monitoring the Future, a long-term study of youth drug abuse and attitudes, run by the University of Michigan and funded by NIDA.
http://www.ncjrs.gov/ondcppubs/publications/policy/99ndcs/glossary.html
* MTF annually assesses drug use among the Nation’s 8th, 10th, and 12th grade students. Annual** use of anabolic steroids remained stable at under …
newmiddleschool.gardencity.k12.ny.us/teachers/Tullo/health_terms_and_notes.htm
* Mountain-time-facing order of stars.
http://www.intuitiveconcepts.com/glossary_m-n.htm
Somehow I don’t think any apply.
MTF? Male to Female. Pretty obvy.
Dude I totally applied to UBC to study ancient religions. Got rejected though :( But it’s nice to meet a fellow feminist/classics nerd.
Good to see someone else around these parts with an avowed interest in Rabbinic Judaism!
Hi Sam! I’m sure the internets will love your guest blog stint. I will, anyway.
Love from sf
i am super happy to see other out jewish nerds in the feminist blogosphere!
go rabbinic judaism! go midrash! go gemara! etc.
Hello! Interesting series of posts. I too am a multi-interest nerd/geek (biology/medicine, history of race, reproduction, genetics/ eugenics, gender, “queer” (LGBT) issues, medical and scientific views of same and also history of women’s involvement in the sciences, history of religion, modern history and sociology of religion, including political involvement – and for fun, science fiction and rather selective non-genre fiction.