Academic Authors Faculty Community House
Academic Authors Community provides a welcoming home for global, faculty-level scholars who have research fellowships or visiting teaching appointments in Washington, DC. The house is collective, with the goal of keeping costs lower for the scholars when possible. Although Catholic in origin and spiritual center, it is broadly contemplative and interfaith, and the house facilitates dialogue across boundaries through shared living near the Georgetown University campus. Because Carole Sargent adapted it quite freely from traditional "House of Studies" examples that she found connected to some of the older religious orders worldwide, there is plenty of quiet time for research, but everyone shares certain structured times together such as semiweekly meals and morning prayer or silent meditation.
Sargent was inspired by several places, including the Lay Centre at Foyer Unitas in Rome (http://www.laycentre.org/); the New Camaldoli Hermitage on Big Sur (https://contemplation.com/); and Pendle Hill, the Philadelphia-area home of Quaker "radical hospitality" (https://pendlehill.org/).
Here is a list of just some of the people who have been in the house since it opened in early 2019.
FULL-TIME, 2019-2020
1. A Georgetown University feminist theologian in the department Theology and Religious Studies on a three-year visiting appointment.
2. A visiting fellow in the Department of Art and Art History, studying Buddhist art (she is a faculty member at Peking University). Her husband has an Asian art history fellowship at UC Berkeley, so he will be here sometimes, and she will be there sometimes. The house looks forward to interfaith engagement between Buddhism and Catholicism, especially through shared practices of meditation.
3. Dr. Carole Sargent, the founder.
OCCASIONAL/TEMPORARY
* The founders of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, guests for an evening along with an SHCJ (Holy Child) Sister who committed--with two companions--the largest breach in US nuclear security history when she broke into Y-12 to pray.
* Faculty from the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven, Belgium. They were research fellows at Dumbarton Oaks. August 2019.
* The two co-founders of LubDub, a hybrid physical theatre company animating stories of science, magic, and myth.
* A street and community skateboard artist from Puerto Rico whose work is in the Phillips Collection and the Whitney Museum of Art. He is supported by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, among other venues, and visits the Department of Art and Art History, just completed a week, and will return for one week at a time, approximately four times per year.
* A professor in public policy at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, UT Austin, focusing on healthcare and aging. Summer 2019.
* A Yale University scholar and summer fellow at an environmental think tank, now working for Pete for America, June 2019.
* Two founders of L'Arche DC to meet with all the members of the house and discuss the meaning of true community.
Everybody cooks! Academic Authors House subscribes to a California foodie service called Sun Basket that provides fresh, healthy, prepped and ready-to-cook ingredients. This allows everyone to cook no matter what their experience level, but members of the house are also welcomed to cook from their national cuisine, or anything else they would like to make for the group. The amount the university or fellowship pays for them to stay includes food, so besides sharing the Sun Basket they can order weekly from online grocery delivery service. Each person cooks for the house about twice a month.
So far it has been amazing. The scholars all think together about what the house can and should be, so it is a dynamic place in constant re-definition.
The house still does not have an official name, so feel free to recommend one. The WiFi does have a name: Dorothy Day.
Sargent was inspired by several places, including the Lay Centre at Foyer Unitas in Rome (http://www.laycentre.org/); the New Camaldoli Hermitage on Big Sur (https://contemplation.com/); and Pendle Hill, the Philadelphia-area home of Quaker "radical hospitality" (https://pendlehill.org/).
Here is a list of just some of the people who have been in the house since it opened in early 2019.
FULL-TIME, 2019-2020
1. A Georgetown University feminist theologian in the department Theology and Religious Studies on a three-year visiting appointment.
2. A visiting fellow in the Department of Art and Art History, studying Buddhist art (she is a faculty member at Peking University). Her husband has an Asian art history fellowship at UC Berkeley, so he will be here sometimes, and she will be there sometimes. The house looks forward to interfaith engagement between Buddhism and Catholicism, especially through shared practices of meditation.
3. Dr. Carole Sargent, the founder.
OCCASIONAL/TEMPORARY
* The founders of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, guests for an evening along with an SHCJ (Holy Child) Sister who committed--with two companions--the largest breach in US nuclear security history when she broke into Y-12 to pray.
* Faculty from the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven, Belgium. They were research fellows at Dumbarton Oaks. August 2019.
* The two co-founders of LubDub, a hybrid physical theatre company animating stories of science, magic, and myth.
* A street and community skateboard artist from Puerto Rico whose work is in the Phillips Collection and the Whitney Museum of Art. He is supported by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, among other venues, and visits the Department of Art and Art History, just completed a week, and will return for one week at a time, approximately four times per year.
* A professor in public policy at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, UT Austin, focusing on healthcare and aging. Summer 2019.
* A Yale University scholar and summer fellow at an environmental think tank, now working for Pete for America, June 2019.
* Two founders of L'Arche DC to meet with all the members of the house and discuss the meaning of true community.
Everybody cooks! Academic Authors House subscribes to a California foodie service called Sun Basket that provides fresh, healthy, prepped and ready-to-cook ingredients. This allows everyone to cook no matter what their experience level, but members of the house are also welcomed to cook from their national cuisine, or anything else they would like to make for the group. The amount the university or fellowship pays for them to stay includes food, so besides sharing the Sun Basket they can order weekly from online grocery delivery service. Each person cooks for the house about twice a month.
So far it has been amazing. The scholars all think together about what the house can and should be, so it is a dynamic place in constant re-definition.
The house still does not have an official name, so feel free to recommend one. The WiFi does have a name: Dorothy Day.