The Plan, Part 1: Chris

Welcome to our blog! Here we’ll recount our raucous travels as we explore the land of our neighbors to the south from July 2008 to July 2009. If you've only heard bits and pieces of why we're going, here’s the 411:

Chris is working on a PhD in Latin American History at Indiana University. She has completed three years of classes (2003-04, 2004-05, 2005-06). Then she took a break so that I could begin seminary classes in Chicago.

For the last two years she has worked full time, both at the Zygon Center for Religion and Science and the Lutheran School of the Theology at Chicago (yes, at the same time). Now she's ready to return to her program.

In the next two years she’ll do research in Mexico (2008-09) and then write her dissertation and defend it (2009-2010). And then, finally, she hopes to have her PhD.

That’s the big picture. Zooming in on the short-term...

In the next year, Chris plans to research how religious practices change when the faithful move from one country to another. To get at this idea, she’ll take a close look at devotion to the Virgin of San Juan de Los Lagos in central Mexico, and what happens when her devotees move from central Mexico to the U.S., and the Midwest of the U.S. in particular. She'll spend her time both in historical archives and in interviews with individual people.

And, lest we think enthusiasm for Chris's project lies only within our little circle, enthusiastic support - financial and otherwise - is already coming in: a few months ago, Chris was awarded a Fulbright-Hayes grant by the U.S. Department of Education.