Enterprenuer
Jonathan VanAntwerpen currently serves as the Program Director for Religion and Theology at the Henry Luce Foundation.
He established and managed a new program on Religion, the Public Sphere, launched a suite of digital publishing platforms, was acting director of communications, and worked to incubate a new initiative in knowledge and culture in a technological age.
Before joining the Luce Foundation, he worked for the Social Science Research Council in New York City.
VanAntwerpen was also involved in the SSRC’s creation and launch of The Immanent Frame.
This innovative digital publication features original writing from hundreds of social sciences, humanities, and arts scholars.
VanAntwerpen was editor-in-chief for many years.
The immanent frame was made an official honoree at the 12th annual Webby Awards shortly after its launch in late 2007.
The Revealer named The Immanent Frame “favorite website, egghead division,” and CNN called it “exceptionally interesting.”
Frequencies was a collaborative digital project that Nathan Schneider and Jonathan VanAntwerpen co-curated.
Frequencies were made an official honoree at the 16th annual Webby Awards.
VanAntwerpen and other editors from The Imperative Frame launched Reverberations two years later.
They were nominated for the 18th annual Webby Awards.
VanAntwerpen, in addition to his digital publications, is also co-editor of several books on religion, secularism, and public life.
These include The Power of Religion in Public Sphere (Columbia University Press), Rethinking Secularism, The Post-Secular in Question(NYU Press), Habermas and Religion, and Varieties of Secularism in a Secular Age.
Initially, he was trained as a philosopher and received his Ph.D. in sociology at the University of California, Berkeley.
In this interview, Jonathan VanAntwerpen’s views and opinions are his and do not necessarily reflect those of the Henry Luce Foundation.
What is the story of The Immanent Frame get its idea?
The Immanent Framework was launched at a time when blogging and “blogospheres” were much more popular than they are today.
It was initially conceived as a multi-contributor site that would discuss the topics of religion, secularism, and the public sphere.
It was intended to be an experimental site that allowed for creative and sometimes more spontaneous writing, cross-disciplinary intellectual exploration, and respectful criticism.
Some reports claim that The Immanent Frame was launched when there were almost sixty million blogs on the internet.
Many of these blogs were interconnected and formed networks to facilitate the dissemination and distribution of ideas.
These ideas stood out against more established media and knowledge production.
While working in the new, expanding digital publishing space, we also drew on work-in-progress that would eventually find its way into more traditional academic publications, such as edited volumes that resulted from workshops and other organized events in tandem with our online efforts.
These books were published by many universities, including Columbia University Press and Harvard University Press.
One of the primary purposes of The Immanent Frame was to offer a platform and space for people to express themselves.
This digital space was meant to be more open-ended and free-wheeling than other publications venues.
In that sense, it bore some resemblances to other blogs and some collaborative ventures in what has come to be called the academic blogosphere.
However, before we published the volumes, we encouraged many anticipated contributors to test out their ideas in an unusual online forum.
We also created a small, but growing, editorial team that allowed contributors to publish their posts through the WordPress backend.
This included freelance editors and writers, students, and staff from the Social Science Research Council, an independent, interdisciplinary research organization with which The Immanent Frame was associated and still is based.
This editorial team was closely involved with individual contributors, many of who were academic researchers and scholars.
Our editors not only proofread and copied-edit content but also encouraged authors to write in an accessible style that was appropriate for the broad and non-specialist audience they were trying to reach and cultivate.
Sometimes, even strategizing together about how to do this.
Although those of our early readers may not have been familiar with the academic work behind The Immanent Framework, many were nevertheless intrigued enough by the questions and arguments our contributors made to continue exploring.
A substantial portion of our early readers were scholars from various social sciences and humanities disciplines.
These fields had become increasingly concerned with religion and the overlap of topics in the study and practice of secularism.
Some readers liked the blog’s name. Charles Taylor, a Canadian philosopher, gave the idea of “the immanent framework” in a comprehensive book called A Secular Age.
How do you stay productive?
Over the past year, the answer to this question has changed dramatically.
The quiet hours of the morning are my most productive.
My day often begins before dawn. Donald Hall, a poet, and author of Life Work, describe the solitude and intensity of work done at this hour in a beautiful book.
The book was written decades ago. I was immediately drawn to Hall’s daily writing practice, which he began long before the birds.
It was something I couldn’t even imagine doing back then.
It has been an integral part of my work relationship in recent years.
How do you bring ideas to life?
My best work has been done in collaboration. I’m just as invested in others’ ideas as mine.
This orientation was the inspiration behind The Immanent Frame and its related projects.
Recently, I’ve been forced to think in new ways about how it might be to “bring ideas into life.”
This is a description I love. This effort is not an abstract analytical exercise to me but a matter of great practical urgency.
What’s your favorite trend?
I am fascinated by the increased production and distribution of Macromedia – which is different from, but also seems to run parallel to, a renewed focus on place and locality – This is a work-in-progress.
It will impact how we see ourselves and our communities.
These are the trends I will be following with interest.
Which habit makes you more productive?
Walking. It allows for new thinking. Every day, it reminds me that mindful purpose is far more critical than brute productivity.
What’s your advice for the Noob?
Read This is Water by David Foster Wallace. It was initially given as a commencement speech to Kenyon College’s graduating class.
One of many memorable lines is this: “The most important kind of freedom requires attention, awareness, discipline, effort, and being capable of truly caring about other people and making sacrifices for them, over and over in myriad small, unsexy, ways every day.”
What is one thing we can all agree on?
It is often counterproductive to believe that every good thing should be scaled.
Particularly in academic and public discourse contexts, and when it comes to new media forms that stimulate or facilitate intellectual engagement, thinking too quickly or too often about the possibility of scaling an idea or platform can prove very restrictive.
It is essential to have the space to explore, take risks, and fail.
Inordinate attention to scaling up can lead to a reduction in what is possible.
Tressie McMillan, a sociologist, has articulated this insight well in an interview with Ezra Klein.
She argues that we need a variety of “messier and more nuanced places” for public discourse.
What’s the one thing that you recommend to everyone?
Take the time to read widely—short articles, long-form essays, interviews, novels, poetry, nonfiction.
What was the one strategy that helped you to grow The Immanent Framework?
Respectful disagreement and accepting differences are critical.
The editorial team we created for The Imperative Frame wasn’t primarily focused on gatekeeping.
Instead, we were trying to make a new kind of online community with significant offline connections.
Although we could not publish all the information we received, we worked hard to increase the number of perspectives and voices the site featured.
That was what I believe shaped both the experiences of our readers and our contributors.
This was also an opportunity to experiment with new writing styles and ideas and be creative.
The demand for this was evident in the diverse authors featured.
Readers could see a different side to these writers, maybe a little less polished or formal than their other publications.
How do you overcome Failure?
I was an accidental entrepreneur. It was a mistake to think I had become an entrepreneur by accident.
The failure to try more often or earlier to invent was the first.
This was a case where I had to overcome a loss serendipitously, thanks mainly to the support of intelligent, generous, and creative colleagues.
Can you share a business idea?
Start a podcast. Podcasts are increasingly popular because they can be used to create audio, visual, and image-driven content.
There are few barriers to entry, low startup costs, significant learning opportunities, and innovation potential.
What’s your recent best buy?
The trampoline was a small indoor trampoline that I bought right before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It transformed my small house into a temporary preschool and workspace.
The trampoline has been a blessing for my two energetic children and me.
What are your favorite Softwares or Apps? What are you doing with it?
Twitter, believe it or not. It’s my commonplace digital book.
Twitter isn’t as versatile as other scrapbook formats, and most users aren’t using it.
Twitter has become synonymous with hate, vitriol, and self-promotion.
It is still a connector and a platform for information and ideas exchange.
Twitter, for me, is a public tool that allows you to collect and curate information and discover and disseminate it.
Which book would you recommend?
How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell is an artist and author.
It reminds us that productivity is not an end-all.
It is a call for us to regain our attention and see the world and our lives again.
What’s your favorite quote?
“Case jacked into and flipped for matrix.” – (1984).
William Gibson
TL;DR by Jonathan VanAntwerpen
We cannot solve urgent problems by ourselves.
It is not necessary to scale up everything worthwhile.
You should be open to serendipity and unanticipated opportunities.
Respectful disagreement and the power of difference are essential.
Learn what it means for you to pay attention to others and your own life.
