Hilaire Kallendorf
Hilaire Kallendorf received her B.A. in Spanish and English from Texas A&M University in 1995. She earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Princeton University in 1998 and 2000. She held a postdoctoral fellowship at UCLA in 2001. She is currently an assistant professor of Hispanic Studies at Texas A&M University.
Hilaire Kallendorf’s research deals with many aspects of religious experience, especially as belief relates to literature and culture. Her book Exorcism and Its Texts: Subjectivity in Early Modern Literature of England and Spain is being published in 2003 by the University of Toronto Press. She has published or had accepted for publication a dozen scholarly articles and reviews on such topics as self-exorcism, demonic possession, ghosts, Taíno religious ceremonies, and Christian humanism in the Renaissance. These articles have appeared in such journals as Renaissance Quarterly, Renaissance and Reformation, the Journal of Latin American Studies, and the Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes.
Howdy, students! I’ve been where you are. A rather short ten years ago, I was in your position, nervous and expectant, excited but hesitant as I embarked on this great adventure of life. I can honestly say that I never dreamed I would be where I am today, and it is only through the grace of God that I am here.
My life story reads like a fairy tale: young girl from West Texas turns Ivy League princess. If my story had a title, I think it would be “From Aggie to Ivy.” The summer after my freshman year I went on a study abroad program and conducted research in the Dominican Republic as part of an honors contract with one of my college professors. By the time I was a senior, I had written up the results of my research and had them accepted for publication as an article in a Cambridge Press journal. It was that article (and an abundance of God’s grace) that opened the door for my admission to Princeton University’s doctoral program in Comparative Literature.
That’s the fairy tale version. Now for the less glamorous part of the story. I’ve been where you are. I was born in San Angelo, in the middle of the West Texas desert. I was not a scholar by heritage; in fact, no one in my immediate family even finished college. After graduating valedictorian of my high school class, I had my heart set on going to a private school, but I couldn’t afford it. My parents contributed nothing financially to my college education. I wish I could say that the Dominican Republic was a golden summer of Caribbean breezes and sunwashed beaches. Oh, it was that, all right—along with unairconditioned anthropological museums, multiple power outages daily, barely a trickle of water coming from the shower, political unrest so frightening my host father wouldn’t let me out of his sight, and mosquitoes so big that insect repellant became a part of my daily toilette. I wish I could tell you that finishing my dissertation was a piece of cake. Instead, I finished it two weeks before my baby was born, and by that point I was so pregnant I could not even reach the keyboard. Not so glamorous, after all.
I tell you these things only to make the obstacles, the dreams, the experiences, and the accomplishments accessible to you. I’ve been where you are. College can be a large and scary place—that is, at least, until you manage to find your niche and, even more importantly, find yourself in the process. For me, finding myself meant achieving a synthesis of my intellectual interests with my Christian faith. In the best tradition of Renaissance Christian humanism, I assure you that such a synthesis is possible.
I’d like to invite you to experience a high unlike any you’ve ever felt before.
Knowing Christ is the only thing that makes life worth living—and that is being said by someone who, at this point, has a pretty cool life! Jesus Christ is the only answer, the only way. Especially in the humanities, you will sometimes be made to feel that “all the truly smart people gave up believing in God in junior high.” Don’t buy it, guys. You don’t have to give up your faith to become an intellectual.
For a young professor, I have achieved some measure of recognition for my scholarly work. And far from giving up my faith to do that, I have thus far managed to incorporate my passion for spirituality into my passion for the life of the mind. It is only through God’s grace that this synthesis has been so exciting and successful. Allow me to give a few examples of the intersection of my faith with my research.
Faith-based research has led me to the Queens College library in Cambridge, England, where I climbed the same medieval book ladder that Erasmus (the founder of Christian humanism) climbed. Faith-based research has led me to the Biblioteca Nazionale in Naples, where I held in my hands one of only three extant autograph manuscripts of the Baroque poet and Christian humanist Francisco de Quevedo. Faith-based research has led me out to Hollywood, where I met with William Friedkin, the director of the movie The Exorcist. Faith-based research on confessional manuals has led me to Washington Heights in Manhattan, where I would breastfeed on the train all the way but then leave my child with my husband in a different neighborhood because near my library it was too dangerous. And faith-based research has led me demon-chasing all over Italy, looking for paintings and sculptures of exorcisms in some of the oddest places. One summer I found a sixteenth-century fresco of an exorcism inside an Italian police station! There are no adventures like the ones you can have when you invite Jesus into all aspects of your life—even your professional career.
In my role as teacher I am trying to “pass the torch” on to an even younger generation of Christian intellectuals. While for me it is essential not to impose my views on anyone or use my classroom as a pulpit, I pray fervently that by the end of a semester students have had enough chances to observe me that they have some idea of where I stand on issues of faith. On the first day of class each semester I invite students to my office to discuss absolutely anything, including “God, the universe, or the meaning of life.” I’m always delighted when they take me up on that offer.
The place where I really feel faith can impact teaching is individual mentoring and independent study opportunities. I have already had five undergraduates working either as my research assistants or as my independent study students, some with honors contracts. One of my students is combing through microfilms, looking for eighteenth- century British women readers of case morality. As a freshman, one of my students was able to get her paper accepted for presentation at a national professional conference. Another student of mine caught my “demon-chasing” bug and did research for my exorcism in art project as she visited churches all over Europe. And still another student—and this was really nostalgic for me—went down to the Dominican Republic to look at a new museum there in light of my findings from an older museum in the same city ten years earlier. Some of these student projects involved religion, while others did not. But the most important aspect of these teaching experiences for me was the chance to get to know these students personally and become a part of their lives.
I and the rest of the faculty at Leadership University welcome you into this great community of Christian scholars. I urge you to make the most of the opportunities you have been given by God. “To whom much has been given, much will be expected.” I’d like to encourage all of you, no matter what your major, not to give up on the idea of reconciling faith with intellectual endeavor. And I’d like to encourage Christian women in particular not to give up on the idea of eventually juggling both a family and a career. With faith and intellect, family and career, it doesn’t have to be just one or the other. You can have it all. Jesus is the way.