Danjuma G. Gibson on How to Read Biographies for Deep Transformation

Our common practices of learning in the church and university privilege cognition over affect and leave the posture of the learner as “detached observer” unchallenged. Neutrality is typically seen as a virtue while personal investment in the subject of study is discouraged. This is true even when reading biographies and history. But what if this approach inhibits deeper knowledge and transformation of the leaner? How might this subject-object approach to reading malform our humanity by circumventing emotions, empathy, and personal involvement? 

In this episode of the new Theology from the Road Podcast from the Institute for Mission, Church, and Culture at Calvin Seminary, Cory Willson talks with Dr. Danjuma Gibson about transformation through new modes of reading biographies. Drawing on his publications Frederick Douglass, A Psychobiography: Rethinking Subjectivity in the Western Experiment of Democracy (Palgrave Macmillen, 2018) and Through the Eyes of Titans: Finding Courage to Redeem the Soul of a Nation (Cascade, 2023), Gibson urges us to read biographies intersubjectively. He explains how enlisting affect in our inquiry into the stories of others attunes us more deeply to our own lives and to theirs. This deepens our knowledge and enables a transformational learning experience. 

Amidst the numerous callings for reckonings in American society, Gibson’s model of reading biographies is an invitation to the church to enter a transformational process of engaging our neighbors, our histories, and ourselves. It is in this space that the Spirit of God delights to inhibit. Knowledge of God and self are indeed interdependent but, biblically speaking, these must be accompanied by a humble openness to our neighbors.