Lines of Inquiry is a new APARRI blog series highlighting the research of APARRI members, the story behind their field of study, and the influences shaping the person behind the scholarship. For this feature, we spoke with Joshua Garcia (Graduate Theological Union) about the intersections between Asian American biblical interpretation and Asian American studies and how The Graduate Theological Union, UC Berkeley, and APARRI have shaped his intellectual and personal growth.
Read the full conversation below.
- Tell us a bit about your research interests. How do the study of Asians and Asian Americans and the study of religion intersect in your work?
My research interests, very broadly, concern the intellectual division between theological and secular knowledge production. In my dissertation, I situate Asian American biblical interpreters and their scholarship within the broader discourse of Asian American studies, particularly literary and cultural theorists, to illuminate how the former’s questions of identity and methodology intersect with and diverge from the latter. In doing so, I demonstrate how critical theories of Asian American racialization and subjectivity clarify contextual hermeneutics’ critical and futurist interventions and argue that the theological project’s intellectual viability is bound to the material and political commitments of Asian Americanist discourse.
The animating center of my intellectual project is the intersection of Asian American studies and religious studies because I am committed to the theological and prophetic potential of Asian American history and cultural production. When I imagine worlds where we address the climate catastrophe, never-ending wars, and techno-capitalist exploitation, I cannot help but envision those horizons through a theological framework. On the way to those eschatons, I remain an Asian American building solidarities within and without my various communities. And the first alliance I am pursuing is between interpreters of literature, biblical and otherwise.
- What drew you to study religion in the first place? And how have your research interests and commitments developed over time?
I was initially interested in the study of the religion of the ancient Israelites in the Bible. However, as I began learning more about the Bible’s fantastic narratives and their interpretations, I found I was actually studying European history and whiteness. Disillusioned by a history of biblical interpretation that is inseparable from nationalist projects, I sought interpretive approaches in recent history that have contended with colonialism and anti-blackness. These methods illuminated as much about Scripture as the context in which they are interpreted, to the point that I grew curious about what they could reveal about me, the interpreter. My research interests shifted from positivist inquiry into a historical expression of religion to a critical assessment of theological knowledge production. In other words, my intellectual commitment has moved from the discipline of biblical studies to the Asian Americans in biblical studies and theology. In the interest of those Asian American biblical scholars and theologians, I am drawn to critical theorists in the secular disciplines as additional allies in expanding our religious imaginations and theological vocabularies.
- What led you to enroll at The Graduate Theological Union in particular, and how has your academic environment shaped your experience as a scholar?
I applied to The Graduate Theological Union for two reasons: to work with Dr. Uriah Y. Kim and to explore Philippine studies and ethnic studies through cross-registration at UC Berkeley. Dr. Kim’s work was the first material on Asian American biblical interpretation I encountered as a seminary student, and I found the questions he and his colleagues asked so formative that I needed his first-hand guidance for my doctoral project. An invaluable byproduct is that I am extremely fortunate not to have to justify my work at the intersection of contextual hermeneutics and critical theories of racial formation. Moreover, I have supplemented my theological education at the GTU with courses in Philippine studies and Asian American studies at UC Berkeley. Additionally trained in archival and ethnographic methods, I have access to a wide range of sources to articulate and investigate the theological contours of the Asian American experience. This academic environment informs my desire not just to straddle the theological and the secular but to hold them tightly together.
- Is there anything that has surprised you across your academic career? Have there been any developments or discoveries that you didn’t expect?
When people talk about the graduate school experience, I have heard it described as isolating and lonely, with the proverbial silos of our disciplines realized as the secluded cubicle in the library basement where we individually toil away on our dissertations and projects. While my experience has indeed had its solitary stretches, I have found that the most life-giving aspects of this work are the times when I get to collaborate and think with friends. And to my surprise, these opportunities appear more often than I anticipated, such as panel collaborations, guest lecturing, or project consulting. I treasure thinking with friends who work with vastly different material from mine because those interdisciplinary encounters have rescued me from many writing blocks and stimulated new avenues of inquiry. Maybe the real discoveries were the friends we made along the way.
- How has your experience with APARRI impacted you, whether professionally or personally? Are there any memorable experiences or moments that stand out?
My experience with APARRI has unalterably impacted me in many ways. Whether professionally, as when Carolyn Chen was my first mentor to identify my affinity for critical theory, making it my identity, unfortunately, or personally, as in friends whose fingerprints are exceedingly obvious in my work, APARRI has become a home I did not anticipate. My most memorable experience with APARRI, and the most illustrative of the serendipity cultivated by the group, is a chance encounter I had with a literary scholar at a reception hosted by AAAS. Her genuine curiosity and careful expertise clarified and focused my research questions when they were in their most nascent form. When I thanked her for her intellectual generosity, I learned that she didn’t even work in religion and had come to the reception because her friend, Justin Tse, told her there would be free food. So the free food at APARRI receptions stands out to me.
- Lastly, if you were able to go back in time to when you first started graduate school and give yourself a piece of advice, what would you say?
I would advise first-year doctoral student Joshua to cultivate practices that give him life, as they lead to greater sustainability and better work. Play soccer regularly, collaborate with friends, read more fiction, write more than scholarship. Those extra-extracurricular activities make life worth living and the work worth doing.
My name is Joshua Rumbaoa Jerome Garcia, and I am a Ph.D. candidate at The Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley, working with critical theories of racial formation and subjectivity as biblical interpretive analytics. I’m trying to think with Asian Americanists in literary and cultural studies to clarify and formalize questions of identity, critique, and futurity in contextual theology, specifically hermeneutics. When not struggling through theory, I try to consume pour-over coffee, romcoms, and world football as unpretentiously as possible.