Call me Kushana, I'm a sometime poster to TheOneRing.com, Board77, the TheHallofFire.net, and the FountainPenNetwork. (Hello to the three of you who know me from there. )

I have a degree in Religion from a school you've never heard of. You've never read a book by me, or seen anything by me in one of the glossy archaeology/religion magazines on newsstand, you've never heard a public radio interview with me, or seen me give a talk at a bookstore. I'm obscure. (Someone once asked me if I was Elaine Pagels (who was then in the midst of a book tour, far too busy (I hope) to be posting on internet message boards) - and I'm not.) If I ever do any of those things I hope I don't mention them here: I'm not doing this to advertise, I just want to speak my mind. I'm here because I would like to say some things that it would not be wise to put on my employer's web site.

(I chose my 'nick because I began posting online on TheOneRing.com and had to choose something. (Most of my posts there have been mulched by time.) I thought of Miyazaki's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, one of my favorite films, but I could not call myself 'Nausicaa' (it would be a bit like calling oneself 'Faramir' - too much to live up to.) The character of Kushana in the film (and manga) has her faults and I preferred taking a name that would remind me of the dangers of hubris. (I could have called myself 'Boromir' but I'd feel funny calling myself by a man's name.))

I'm a specialist on the centuries around Christianity's beginnings, especially its obscure corners. I like what archaeologists call 'peripheries'- things that are the center of attention are written about a great deal, and it's easier to do one's own work without encountering a bibliographic thicket in places and topics that are a bit less farmed-over. I don't have opinions on contemporary religions or Mid-East politics; I really can't help you with anything past 400 CE, but I know some things about what I've studied and I love the past fiercely.

(Note: I would not like to go there. I am a fan of indoor plumbing, electricity, central heat, vaccination, antibiotics, and anesthetics - and chocolate. Once of my archaeology professors once quipped that people in Antiquity died in their 30's because there was no chocolate - what did they have to live for?)

I want to talk about the past: it is a wild and independent place, never completely what you would wish it to be, often comforting and disturbing all at the same time. People are very fond of placing their hopes on the past, one often finds dreams of utopia and liberation placed there; but the past has a way of being strange, of being quite itself, you're going to find both a portion of things-that-don't-fit there and a measure of the utterly alien. As an old Science Fiction and Fantasy fan I love the recognizable-but-alien and I'm delighted to have found a way to work with it every day.

Let me give you an example:

"Oh Jesus of fair name, the first of the gods!
— You are the New Moon, oh God, and you are the noble Father!
Oh Full Moon, Jesus, Lord of fair name!"
-a hymn in Persian, H.-J. Klimkeit, trans.
from p. 161 of Gnosis on the Silk Road

(If I sound unusually cranky it's because I'm under an unaccustomed deadline - but my helper said today was the day to get up and running and I wanted to 'go live' with something.)

-Kushana

Note to self:  topics, Lord of the Rings, The Gnostic Gospels, Adam Eve and the Serpent, Beyond Belief, Rereading Judas, Hans-Joachim Klimkeit, Manichaeism,  Gnosticism, Religion Studies.