Jason’s talk is called “Do This in Remembrance of Me: Bits and Pieces in Re-membering the Body”
A third testament of the Christian tradition was never canonized. However, two works explore the fresh manifestation of a divine revelation of community within the natural world. These new scriptures guide us towards “re-membering” new bodies of community within a natural environment. Written 136 years apart, Moby Dick by Herman Melville and Beloved by Toni Morrison explore this transformation within the evolving American landscape. Each work’s Biblical allusions and narratological structure beg to be seen as a third testament, one which incarnates the collective community within the new sacred space of the natural world.
Ultimately, these scriptures guide the development of community firmly rooted in an ecological understanding. In Beloved, Baby Suggs is the manifestation of the divine and her chapel is that of the wild forest, far from the walls of standard temple or church. In Moby Dick, Queequeg is the Word incarnate and his prophet, Ishmael, extends the sacred space to the whole of the Earth: “I mean, sir, the same ancient Catholic Church to which . . . all of us . . . belong; the great and everlasting First Congregation of this whole worshiping world . . . in that we all join hands.” The two works, in concert, present a path through myth towards community empathy.
About Jason
Jason D. Batt is the co-founder of Signal Hill Road Publishing. He serves as the Creative and Editorial Director for the 100 Year Starship and is the founder and organizer of the annual Canopus Award for Excellence in Interstellar Writing. His novels include Onliest, Young Gods, and Dreamside, and his short fiction has appeared in Perihelion, Bastion, Bewildering Stories, A Story Goes On, and other periodicals. Most recently he edited the science fiction anthology Visions of the Future, published through Lifeboat Foundation and Strange California, a successful Kickstarter through Falstaff Books.
To hear Jason’s talk and many others, join us at the Mythologium!
The Mythologium is a conference and retreat for mythologists and friends of myth, held July 29 – 31 via Zoom in the Pacific time zone.