GERALD J. MAST, Ph.D.
(aka Gerald Biesecker-Mast)
EDUCATION
TEACHING APPOINTMENTS
PUBLICATIONS:
BOOKS
Separation
and the Sword in Anabaptist Persuasion: Radical Confessional Rhetoric from
Schleitheim to Dordrecht.
Cascadia Publishing House, 2006.
Teaching
Peace: Nonviolence and the Liberal Arts (co-edited with J. Denny Weaver). Rowman and Littlefield, 2003.
Anabaptists
and Postmodernity (co-edited with Susan Biesecker-Mast). Pandora Press
PUBLICATIONS:
ARTICLES AND CHAPTERS
“The Persistence of Anabaptism as Vision.” Mennonite Quarterly Review, January 2007, 21-42.
“Critique and Subjection in Anabaptist Witness.” in Nate Yoder, ed., Exiles in the Empire. Pandora Press, 2006, 43-57.
“Deconstruction, Messianic Hope, and Just Action.” in
“In the World But Not of It: Mennonite Traditions as Resources for Rhetorical Invention.” (co-authored with Susan Schultz Huxman) Rhetoric and Public Affairs, Winter 2004, 539-554.
“Ministry After Modernity.” Brethren in Christ History and Life, December 2004, 254-281.
“The Word Made Flesh: The Skin of History in Yoderian Historiography.” Fides Et Historia, Winter/Spring 2004, 53-66.
“The Radical Christological Rhetoric of John Howard Yoder.” in Ben Ollenburger and Gayle Gerber Koontz, eds., A Mind Patient and Untamed: Assessing John Howard Yoder’s Contributions to Theology, Ethics, and Peacemaking. Cascadia Publishing House, 2004, 39-55.
“Communicating Identity.” in First
Year Seminar textbook.
“Christian Nonviolence and the Enlightenment Crisis.” in J. Denny Weaver and Gerald Biesecker-Mast, eds., Teaching Peace: Nonviolence and the Liberal Arts. Rowman and Littlefield, 2003, 3-14.
“Slavoj Žižek, The Fragile Absolute, and the Anabaptist Subject.” Brethren Life and Thought, Summer/Fall 2003, 176-191.
“’Bloody Theater’ and Christian Discipleship.” Mennonite Historical Bulletin, October 2001, 1-6.
“Anabaptist Separation and Arguments Against the Sword in the Schleitheim Brotherly
“Recovering the Anabaptist Body (To Separate it For the World).” In Susan Biesecker-Mast and Gerald Biesecker-Mast, eds., Anabaptists and Postmodernity, Pandora Press, U.S., 2000, 193-213.
“The Rhetorical Integration of Salvation and Ethics in the Early Twentieth Century by Two American Amish Writers: Daniel E. Mast and David J. Stutzman.” Mennonite Quarterly Review, July 1999, 525-538.
“Mennonite Public Discourse and the Conflicts Over Homosexuality.” Mennonite Quarterly Review, April 1998, 275-300.
“Jihad, McWorld, and Anabaptist Discipleship.” Mennonite Life, September 1997, 4-15.
“Spiritual Knowledge, Carnal Obedience, and Anabaptist Discipleship.” Mennonite Quarterly Review, April 1997, 201-226.
“How to Read Social Movement Rhetorics as Discursive Events.”
“A Genealogy of Oratory.” (coauthored with Sue Biesecker-Mast, Barbara
Biesecker, and James McDaniel) Encyclopedia of Rhetoric and Composition:
Communication from Ancient Times to the Modern Age. Ed. Teresa Enos.
“Toward a Radical Postmodern Anabaptist Vision.” Conrad Grebel Review, Winter 1995, 55-68.
“Forensic Rhetoric and the Constitution of the Subject: Innocence, Truth, and Wisdom in Gorgias' Palamedes and Plato's Apology.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Summer/Fall 1994, 148-166.
“Mennonite History in
“Two Visions:
“The
“Epideictic Oratory as Identity Production: The Problem of Domination and
Submission in Isocrates' Helen.” Realms of Rhetoric: Phonic, Graphic,
Electronic. Eds. Victor J. Vitanza and Michelle Ballif. RSA 1990 National
Conference Proceedings.
PUBLICATIONS: ENCYCLOPEDIA ENTRIES
“Anabaptists and the Bible.” Encyclopedia
of the Bible and Its Reception.
“A Genealogy of Oratory.” (coauthored with Sue Biesecker-Mast, Barbara
Biesecker, and James McDaniel) Encyclopedia of Rhetoric and Composition:
Communication from Ancient Times to the Modern Age. Ed. Teresa Enos.
PUBLICATIONS: RESPONSES
“How the Martyrs Mirror Helped Save Me: A Response to Krehbiel and Goering.” Mennonite Life, forthcoming.
“Further Footnotes on Rhetoric, Yoder, and Boyarin.” Crosscurrents, Winter 2007, 52-59.
“Response to Snyder” [C. Arnold Snyder, “The Birth and Evolution of Swiss Anabaptism (1520-1530)], Mennonite Quarterly Review, October 2006, 651-657.
“Creedal Orthodoxy is Not Enough: A Response to Ollenburger.” Mennonite Life, September 2005, online journal, http://www.bethelks.edu/mennonitelife/2005Sept/Biesecker%20Mast%20response.php
“Psyched Over Žižek, Disturbed By Derrida, and Running from Rorty.” Brethren Life and Thought, Summer/Fall 2003, 204-211.
“Response to Harry Huebner.” Mennonite Life, March 2003, online journal, http://www.bethelks.edu/mennonitelife/2003Mar/biesecker-mast.php
“'Narrative Theology in an Anabaptist-Mennonite Context.' J. Denny Weaver. A Response By Gerald Biesecker-Mast.” Conrad Grebel Review, Fall 1994, 330-334.
PUBLICATIONS: BOOK REVIEWS
“Catechism in the Worshipping Community.” Review of: Simon Chan, Liturgical Theology; Debra Murphy, Teaching That Transforms; Sara Wenger
Shenk,
Sara Wenger Shenk,
Robert A. Riall, trans. and Galen A. Peters, ed., The Earliest Hymns of the Ausbund. Reviewed in Mennonite Quarterly Review, April 2005, 280-282.
John D. Roth, Choosing Against War.
Reviewed in
Christopher Seitz, ed., Nicene Christianity. Reviewed in Religious Studies Review, April 2003, 180.
Peter Matheson, The Rhetoric of the Reformation. Reviewed in Mennonite Quarterly Review, April 2002, 246-258.
James W. Lowry, The Martyr's Mirror Made Plain. Reviewed in Mennonite Quarterly Review, January 2000, 197-200.
Stephen Scott, An Introduction to Old Order and Conservative Mennonite Groups. Reviewed in Journal of Mennonite Studies, 1997, 236-238.
Daniel Liechty, Early Anabaptist Spirituality; Cornelius Dyck, Spiritual
Life in Anabaptism; and Marlene Kropf & Eddy Hall, Praying With the
Anabaptists. Reviewed in Mennonite Life, December 1997, 44-46.
PUBLICATIONS: NONACADEMIC ESSAYS
“The Da Vinci Code, Martyrs Mirror, and the
“Making Jesus Central in Mennonite Education: A Proposal for Church-based Schooling.” The Mennonite, January 24, 2006, 14-15.
“For a Sexual Discernment to Come.” Dreamseeker Magazine, Winter 2006, 51-58.
“On Mennonite Scholars, Organic Intellectuals, and Public Media.” Anabaptist-Mennonite Scholars Network Newsletter, Spring 2005, 2-6.
“Seeking a Better Country and the Peace of the City.” The Mennonite,
“The Sword of Governance and the Perfection of Christ.” Christian Living, September 2002, 16-18.
“God’s People and a Different Way.” in Donald B. Kraybill and Linda Gehman
Peachey, eds., Where Was God on September 11? (
“Living as Though We Were Not Married.” Christian Living, September 2000, 21-24.
“The Radical
“The Church Needs to Present an Alternative to Military Solutions.”
(coauthored with J. Denny Weaver) The Mennonite,
“Living A Radical Alternative: We Who Have Been Embraced By Jesus' Love Must Extend It To Others.” Gospel Herald, January 25, 1994, 1-3.
“Further Footnotes on Rhetoric. (A response to “Judaism as a
Free Church: Footnotes to John Howard Yoder’s The Jewish Christian Schism Revisited” by Daniel Boyarin) Mennonite
Scholars Forum,
“Adieu my beloved, and always persevere steadfastly,”:
Mennonite Love Letters in the Martyrs
Mirror.” Mennonite/s Writing Beyond
Borders conference,
“Maintaining ‘More or Less With Regard to This or That Point’: Confessions
of Faith in the Martyrs Mirror.”
Holding Fast to the Confession of Our Hope: The Confession of Faith Ten Years
Later conference, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary,
“Nonviolent Ecclesial Anabaptism as Mennonite Theology: An Emerging
Framework for the 21st Century Church.” Anabaptist Seminar, Eastern
“Nonviolent Ecclesial Anabaptism as Historiographical Paradigm: An Emerging
Approach to the Radical Reformation.” Anabaptist Colloquium, Eastern
“Rendering Service…As to the Lord: Body Politics, Vocational Choice, and
Professional Performance.” Cultivating a Culture of Calling: Mennonite
Perspectives on Vocation conference,
“Subjection and
Critique in Anabaptist Witness.” God, Democracy, and U.S. Power conference
(believers church conference),
“Revolutionary Subordination as Nonviolent Performance:
Notes Toward an Exhilic Rhetoric.” Teaching Peace conference,
“Nonviolence, Liberal Arts, and the Postmodern Context.” The Schooled Heart: Moral Formation in American Higher Education conference, Baylor University, Waco, Texas, October 2003.
“The Witnessing Body in Anabaptist Ritual.” Ritual in
Anabaptist Communities Conference of the Anabaptist-Mennonite Scholars Network
and the Anabaptist Sociology and Anthropology Association,
“The Word Made Flesh and the Skin of History in Yoderian
Historiography.” Conference on Faith and History Fall Meeting,
“The Politics of Separation and Unity in the Schleitheim
Brotherly
“Messianic Hope and Radical Action in the Works of Jacques Derrida and Slavoj Žižek.” (Re)Connecting Spirituality and Social Justice: Christian Visions, Christian Realities; An International Conference for Scholars, Pastors, and Laypeople, Messiah College, Grantham, Pennsylvania, June 2002
“The Radical Christological Rhetoric of John Howard Yoder.” Assessing the
Theological Legacy of John Howard Yoder, A
“The Anabaptist Subject: or how to change the world without the sword of governance.” Anabaptist Sociology and Anthropology Association Meeting, Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, June 2001.
“Orthodoxy and Separation in Peter Riedemann’s Confessional Rhetoric.”
Anabaptist Colloquium,
“Peace Pedagogy and the Practice of Persuasion.” Teaching Peace and Justice
Conference, Young Center for the Study of Anabaptist and Pietist Groups,
“Separation and Defenselessness in Anabaptist Persuasion.” Exploring Truth
in a Pluralistic Society Conference, Southern
“Recovering the Anabaptist Body (to Separate it for the World).” Anabaptists
and Postmodernity Conference,
“The Rhetorical Integration of Salvation and Ethics in the Early Twentieth
Century by Two American Amish Writers: Daniel E. Mast and David J. Stutzman.”
One People, Many Voices Conference,
“Reading Walter Wink's and Rene Girard's Religious Critiques of Violence as
Communication Ethics.” National Communication Association Annual Meeting,
“Liberal Rhetoric, Constructive Theology, and Social Antagonisms.” Gordon
Kaufman Symposium,
“Reading Social Movement Rhetorics as Discursive Events: A Situational
Approach.” Speech Communication Association Annual Meeting,
“A Radical Public Theology for Reformation
“Apocalyptic Communities in Transhistorical Perspective: A Comparison of the
“Luther, Müntzer, and the Religious Origins of German Nationalism.” Speech
Communication Association Annual Meeting,
“Legitimating Revolution in 1525: The Radical Christian Identities of Thomas
Müntzer and the German Peasants.” Speech Communication Association Annual
Meeting,
“Constructing the Transcendent Community in Early Mennonite Rhetoric: Dirk
Philips' 'The Congregation of God'.” Speech Communication Association Annual
Meeting,
“The Radical Reformation Interpreted as a Rhetorical Event.” Anabaptist
Colloquium,
“Nonresistance in the
“Anabaptist Communism in Münster and Its Function as an Effaced Origin in
Mennonite Separatist Rhetoric.” Speech Communication Association Annual
Meeting,
“Heroism and Victimage in Bush's War Messages: Epideictic Oratory as
Cultural Production.” Rhetoric Society of
“Articulating American Identities in a
“Public Guilt or Private Innocence: The Practice of Self-Defense in
Gorgias's Palamedes and Plato's Apology.” Speech Communication Association
Annual Meeting,
“The Rhetorical Construction of Mennonite Public Identities: 'The Anabaptist
Vision' of Harold Bender.”
“Panhellenism and Patriarchy in Isocrates' Helen.” Speech Communication
Association Annual Meeting,
“Epideictic Oratory as Identity Production: The Problem of Domination and
Submission in Isocrates' Helen.” Rhetoric Society of
“Reinscriptions of Patriarchy in Classical Oratory: Gorgias' and Isocrates'
Versions of the Helen Legend.” Eastern Communication Association Convention,
“The Renaming of Helen by Gorgias and Isocrates.” Speech Communication
Association of
INVITED PRESENTATIONS
Keynote and Plenary addresses
“Radical Reformation in
“Ministry After Modernity.” Brethren in Christ Study Conference, Grantham
Brethren in
Public presentations
“Performing Faith: A Radical Christian Perspective on Vocation,”
Presidential Scholarship Competition Lecture,
“The Way of the Cross, the Grain of the Universe, and Pacifist
Epistemology,” Theologia Pacis Colloquium,
“The Priestly Vocation of the Christian,” Faculty Colloquium,
“The Amish in
“Following Christ in Worship and Work,” Pathways Faculty Scholar lunchtime presentations (Discovering Truth, February 3; Respecting Life, February 23; Living in Community, March 23; Serving Others, April 20), Bluffton University, Bluffton, Ohio, 2006.
“Performing Faith in Worship and Work: An Anabaptist Perspective on Vocational
Ethics.” Faculty Colloquium,
“The Amish and
“Anabaptist Separation and Mennonite Political Witness.” Associated Mennonite
Biblical Seminary,
“Nonviolence Across the Curriculum” workshop (with J. Denny Weaver).
Choosing Peace: Practicing Faith in Public conference.
“The Amish and
“Faith and Academics in a Mennonite Perspective.”
“The
“Speaking Gracefully in the Midst of Conflict.” First Presbyterian Church,
“Bloody Theater and Christian Discipleship.” The Mirror of the Martyrs
Exhibit Reflections,
“Separation and the Sword in Anabaptist Persuasion: The Case of Peter
Riedemann.” Faculty Colloquium,
“Communication Studies.” Alumni Chapel,
“Anabaptist Arguments Against Violence.” Faculty Colloquium,
“The Faculty Hiring Process from the Standpoint of the Applicant.”
Conference on Preparation for the Professoriate, The
“Communication Ethics and Radical Welcome.” Faculty Colloquium,
“A Community of Respect.” Forum Lecture,
“Public Discourse and Sexual Conflict Among American Mennonites: A Study of
Popular Arguments on Homosexuality.” Conference on Mennonites and Conflict,
“The Anabaptist Vision and the Postmodern Condition: A Rhetorical
Challenge.” Upper Level Undergraduate Course -- Postmodernism and its
Construction(s),
“Toward a Radical Postmodern Anabaptist Vision.” Whither the Anabaptist
Vision conference, Young Center for the Study of Anabaptist and Pietist Groups,
“
Guest Lectures
“What Mennonites Believe.” Institute for Learning in Retirement,
“Why I am an Anabaptist.” Graduate Seminar in Protestant Christianity,
“Zwingli, the Radical Reformation, and the Schleitheim Brotherly
“Amish, Old Order, and Conservative Mennonites: An Introduction.” Institute
for Learning in Retirement,
Sermons
“Teaching Peace as Christian Witness.”
“The Anabaptist View of the Church.”
“Citizens with the Saints.” Pleasant
“Shaped by that
“The Spectacle of Faithfulness.”
“God’s Foolishness and Human Wisdom.” (with Sue Biesecker-Mast)
“Communication and Nonviolence.”
“People of God, People of Mercy.” Pleasant
“Faith Journey: Entering the Covenant.”
PROFESSIONAL and CHURCH-RELATED SERVICE
Member, planning committee for Anabaptist Conviction After Marpeck conference,
Member, planning committee for Mennonite University Faculty Conference,
Member, Mennonite Historical Society executive committee, 2005-present.
Member, Advisory Committee, Classics of the Radical Reformation series, 2004-present.
Member, The Mennonite Magazine Board, 2003-present.
Chair, Program Committee, Central District Conference of Mennonite Church USA, 2003-04.
Invited participant, Mennonite Consultation on Economic Globalization,
Member, Board of Editors, Studies in Anabaptist and Mennonite History, 2000-present.
Member, Program Committee, Central District Conference of Mennonite Church USA, 1999-2005.
Member, planning committee for Mennonites and the Family conference,
Member, planning committee for the 13th
Consultant (with Sue Biesecker-Mast) to Mennonite Central Committee project on personnel trends, Spring 1999.
Member, Board of Trustees,
Member, planning committee for Anabaptists and Postmodernity conference,
Member, Advisory Group, The Mennonite, 1997-2000.
Journal Referee (occasional), Conrad Grebel Review.
Journal Referee (occasional), Mennonite Quarterly Review.
Judge, C. Henry Smith Peace Oratorical Contest,
Judge, Annual Interclass Contest,
Consultant to the Language and Literature Department,
Reader, Critical Discourse Theory and Praxis Division of the National Communication Association, Spring 1997.
Judge, Annual Interclass Contest,
Judge, Annual Oral Interpretation Contest,
Member, Board of Directors,
Member, Board of Directors, World Federalist Association of
Member, Steering Committee, American Society for the History of Rhetoric, 1991-1992.
AFFILIATIONS AND MEMBERSHIPS
National Communication Association
Religious Communication Association
Mennonite Historical Society
Anabaptist-Mennonite Scholars Network
AWARDS AND SCHOLARSHIPS
Award of Merit (Theological or Scholarly Article), “The Da Vinci Code, Martyrs
Mirror, and the
Pathways Faculty Scholar,
Faculty Sabbatical Leave, Fall 2005
Anathan Fellowship ($2000), WQED
Bloch Scholarship ($1000), World Federalist Association of
Second Prize ($50), “The Renaming of Helen by Gorgias and Isocrates.” Speech
Communication Association of
COURSES TAUGHT
MEDIA EXPERIENCE
Public Relations Writer, WQED
News and Features Editor, Graphic Publications,
News Writer, East Canton Press-News,
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Examining the production of social identity in rhetorical discourse
Explaining the role of human communication in the formation of social, political, and religious movements
Studying public controversies through the analysis of popular arguments in their historical and mediated contexts
Rethinking traditional categories of rhetorical and communication theory in light of new developments in cultural and critical theory
Investigating problems and issues in the field of Anabaptist-Mennonite studies from the standpoint of the discipline of communication
Examining disciplinary and popular assumptions from the standpoint of nonviolent epistemology—shaped by the politics and ethics of Jesus