Richard J Tilley

If you are going to make a definitive statement, one you are willing to double down on, please explicate. You may not realize that you have a teachable moment. Take advantage of it. We all have corners of ideas, ideas we jot down, but never get around to expanding on – however, clarifying those ideas and getting all that information out of your head is not that hard. There is only one secret to writing, only one secret to getting out seemingly complex ideas – – – you just sit down and start writing. Writing is not dependent on emotive experiences. That is the delusion that stops so many people from writing It is not true. Just sit and start.

And please share openly. That includes scholarship. Community building starts with sharing and starting a conversation. Closed access publishing looks good on a CV, but who does it help? So few. So few. Take advantage of what is left of the open internet. Open Access is the key to building an education model that can influence future practices in a very real way. Reform comes through practice. Practice comes from you. Share your best material openly. Evolution can happen. Don’t try to make a career out of being a “public intellectual.” Just be public. Careerism is and has always been the practice of the misguided.

Even with my barely adequate education I can see with great clarity that the overwhelming majority of those who see themselves as progressives or believe themselves to be radicalized have yet to see the light of day. So, so many scholars could be out there guiding others and so, so few people actually are. I find this very distressing. And disappointing. This isn’t hard to do folks. We are never going to get anywhere unless the right people begin to speak up. If not, we are a failed species.

Under the regional determinationism of our current struggles we are slowly beginning to see that is no singular public individual who can or should stand apart to light the way. It will take collective effort and it will take the throwing off of this obsolete idea of the so-called “thought leader”. The truth is, while there is a very good argument to be made we would benefit from one unique individual’s leadership over the common group, that only goes to prove that the common public intellectual is not so vital after all. They are not more endowed with any innate gift to prevent the world from sinking into a new dark age. While there are many standing in line to be seen as a public intellectual, as a leader of thought and form, we see now that they have had very little to offer and that their sheep will continue to spin out of control, never coming to a firm conclusion on what is moral, what is good, and what is the path forward. There are more and more drifting towards an idea of holistic and mutually beneficial progress and in that there is hope.

I do not think individual humanities work needs to stop with the removal of grants. Yes, clearly communities and community culture will be hurt. However, individuals can continue privately, to the best of their ability, and budget, share openly in the spirit of Open Access and the common good. We are called to be stewards of public knowledge, whether we get credit for it or not. Now more than ever. If I can afford to share what minor research I have done in Violence Studies and theology openly, and I live paycheck to paycheck, then I know others can do it. And I was fortunate enough to have a good many brilliant professors. If only they shared what they understood openly, wow. What a difference that would make. What I am thinking of something like the Freedom Schools, but able to be carried out on an individual level (and collectively, if permitted and if safe to do so). That can be done with or without the internet. Open stewardship of education is the only way to assure that if progress comes, more individuals will be better able to maintain that progress.

I continue to work on what I call the theory of monetized empathy, which states that people are more likely to be oppressed by other people if they lack financial well-being. This is not to be confused. Intersectionality still applies. This takes nothing away from intersectionality.

I immersed myself into Violence Studies, with the belief that violence is not inevitable and that if society is to overcome violence, it must be understood. I have also worked on a self-imposed regimented program and independent research related to sociology and radical geography. I have an extensive scholarly library that I have built up over the years. My research is based on my continued focus on history and literature. I also incorporated my research on Violence Studies and Space and Place and some elements of cultural anthropology. It was challenging to design a self-taught program that I could do. Elements of this research was more difficult on my own. At the risk of being exceedingly presumptuous, if not arrogant, I conjured the terms “biolence,” “Epitome scaling,” “Share-metrics,” “violence-narratives,” “violence-customs ,” “socio-ontological denominationalism,” and “nuclear religiosity” in my sometimes available writings on post-violence societies and feminist theology (I thought I came up with “masculinarity,” but I checked and someone else thought of it first).

I am a former long-time musician. I have been writing poetry for roughly 30 years. I do not write poetry with that goal of publication in mind, but rather, attempts to capture the healing of truths. I am writing non-fiction, and sometimes fiction, with the goal of eventual proper publication, despite how late in life such acts would be.

I am a fervent believer in a greatly reformed educational system. I believe that holds the key, or at least, a significant leaping off point to maintaining and initiating societal reforms. Yes, to many this is obvious, but implementing such an endeavor and to what extent it should be calibrated is something I have also worked on, through writings again only sometimes available online. There are additional theological writings and writings on violence research that are not online.

At one point I was a specialist on Burma / Myanmar. I was even on NPR. I co-founded an organization which collected books for learning centers for refugee camps throughout Southeast Asia.

In the rare event that I need to be contacted, my email is rtilley4-AT-alumni.jh-DOT-edu (sorry, but writing an email like that really does work in avoiding spam sweeping algorithms).

I have a Master of Liberal Arts from Johns Hopkins University (mostly philosophy and ethics courses, but not restricted to that. Also digital humanities and history. Master’s thesis dealing with theology.). I also hold an interdisciplinary liberal arts degree from Portland State University where I focused on Women’s Studies, Conflict Resolution, and Literature. Additionally I attended an HBCU, Bowie State University, where I majored in English with a concentration in Africana. I took more than enough classes for a BA in English, without earning the degree, and more than enough classes to minor in History. It all started at community college believe it or not. From community college to grad school at Johns Hopkins. It was quite a ride!

My master’s thesis was titled, Provoking God. It was a theological analysis of social justice in the Hebrew Bible from a feminist perspective with the overall argument that we have the right to challenge God to interceded on behalf of social justice. What I can say objectively is that what we see in the world, what others are willing to do to other people and the involved sociological, ontological, and relational indices of the result and actions of what God would Be – only goes further to prove the existence of an Abrahamic God. This argument is not emotive, but what anyone could see if they have completed sober close readings of the reference texts and not just what is taught about those texts.