Samantha La Peter

 

Samantha La Peter is a second-year M.A. student in the Divinity School.

Samantha La Peter is from Yorktown Heights, New York. She graduated with a major in religion from Swarthmore College in 2000, and matriculated in the M.A. program at the Divinity School in autumn 2003.

Having thought about applying to the Divinity School since I began studying religion as an undergraduate (back in 1996), I am well aware of the cautionary phrases sometimes associated with it—“highly competitive” and “lacking warmth,” for example. I want to debunk such misconceptions. Certainly the course work here is demanding, the professors exacting, and one’s fellow students at times intimidatingly interesting and interested—but “competitive” does not accurately describe this intellectually challenging atmosphere (that is, unless one is referring to the professional edge one gains from receiving a degree from the Div School). Competition here is much more a matter of students’ internal motivations, their drive to outdo themselves in pursuit of scholarly excellence. In regard to the faculty: though they are busy being academic VIPs, they are still very approachable. They care about the work you care about, and will make time to see that your questions are answered, your concerns addressed.

My sense of the community here is that it is as strong as you want to make it. There will always be those who put work above all else, but on the whole this school is populated by people who understand that life is (and should be) more varied. This much is confirmed by my favorite “formal” community-building exercise at the Div School, the monthly “4-to-8” happy hour (keywords: free food and alcohol). In fact, even students like myself who do not reside in Hyde Park can enjoy the community, despite the commute.

This fall I will apply for admission into the Ph.D. program in Religion and Literature. For me, Religion and Literature is the ideal because its multifaceted faculty and interdisciplinary design are well suited for diverse and sometimes unconventional projects. In my research, I want to interrogate examples from the literary imagination where textual-contextual relations are mediated through a consciousness and appropriation of religion. As “religion” and the “literary imagination” are neither single entities nor unified concepts, my more specific interest is in examining how two moments in the history of Christianity, and their respective religious modalities and themes, are deployed in modern and contemporary Western novels (and to a lesser extent, film): its infancy as a marginalized movement vis-à-vis the Roman Empire and its medieval, especially mystic and monastic, manifestations. Such deployments of these Christiantities (rather conceptions thereof) have a wide range of functions, but I am most interested in those that create a “safe” space for incisive cultural critique or protest by utilizing the literary mode that is itself central to these Christianities’ literary, interpretative, and cultural practices: allegory. The genesis of my interest—and its still more specific articulation—is in a genre virtually defined by its messianic, eschatological, and apocalyptic narratives, and by its frequent recourse to allegory for connecting these Christian (and other religious) histories to a commentary on our present through a vision of our (im)possible future: science fiction.

This sort of project is only possible in a program with vast resources and an openness to projects involving religion in a multiplicity of ways. The University of Chicago Divinity School is just such a place. And this is not just because it is one of the few places where my somewhat under-represented sub-discipline, Religion and Literature, exists. Here, one’s professors, peers, and larger university environment provide seemingly limitless resources. My research, for instance, will require me to work in other departments within the Divinity School, namely, History of Christianity, as well as departments outside of it, such as Comparative Literature, English, and Classics. Such interdisciplinary work does not, however, compromise the rigorous and comprehensive study of religion required by this academic field: the resources of this school and the breadth of its programs will help me develop competence in two fields simultaneously, and the course work in the Divinity School’s M.A. program will ensure me a solid grounding in the methods of the study of religion.