Comrades: I don’t say this lightly. I am humbled by your support and community gifting to help me get to South Korea! I know I have written about being working class and at times working poor, and my partner and I have a deep hustle game in every effort to resist the corporatization of America and ‘make little moves against destructiveness.’ To that end, community supports my research. After all, I am a public scholar. I am taking the tools of the academy and combining them with the generative relationships I am able to make around the world and try to teach and write in an anti-disciplinary manner while having my sights set on another possible world.

Today, I am $239 away from being able to purchase my tickets to Seoul, South Korea. Just a little bit more left to close the gap. Can you help? Venmo is RobertoChe.

I have connected with a wonderful theologian who is based part time in Seoul and part time in New York City at Union Theological Seminary, Professor Chung Hyun Kyung. Read about her here. I’ll be visiting with her and hopefully other theologically minded Koreans while I am in the surrounding area! She has also recommended a Buddhist Temple for me and I plan to do a Temple Stay.

The chance to travel to South Korea is amazing to me and I can’t believe my life as a pubic scholar enables me to get to do these sorts of things. Of course, I’ll be spending part of my time preparing for my summer course that I am teaching at Duke Divinity School: Decolonial Theologies. South Korea was under several occupations, so I’m hopeful that my time there will illumine another fold of decolonial thinking. I hope you will be thinking of me while I’m away and be paying attention to this Substack as I report on the ground what’s happening and the leanings I’m having. I think my next book on belonging and freedom will be much better after this trip, considering the continent of Asia is radically different than anything I’ve ever experienced!

Consider giving just $20 to help me close the gap on the $239 I have left. Though I have a platform, I don’t always h ave the rent paid or food in the fridge. But, I believe in making ‘little moves against destructiveness’ and will endeavor to use my gifts of critical thinking and scholarships to dream the impossible and create conditions for another possible world to emerge! I believe in hoping for and dreaming what we want and need. Will you help me get to South Korea? Share with your friends who might want to support me.

I just need 12 people to give $20 and I can close the gap on this trip and purchase my tickets before they go up any more! Venmo is RobertoChe. If you need to give another way, please reply to this email!

Thank you for reading and for supporting this public scholarship! We are going to do great things together! Also, if you are a paying subscriber of this Substack, I’ll be releasing special photos of my time in South Korea and inviting you into my journey, so if you’ve not upgraded and were looking for a time to do that, that time is now! I’m going to start sharing my thoughts on belonging and freedom with the community that subscribes. I’m hopeful they will let me know their thoughts on my wandering and wondering!

Onward for what is True, Beautiful, and Good, —Dr. Roberto Che Espinoza.