Jim Watts has posted the text of the paper he delivered at the 2012 EIR-AAR/Society for Comparative Research in Iconic and Performative Texts meeting over at the Iconic Books blog.
You can read the full text of his talk here.
Showing posts with label Conferences. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Conferences. Show all posts
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Saturday, December 24, 2011
All I want for Christmas is a Controlled Vocabulary...
...or, at least, to start a conversation about one.
A "controlled vocabulary" is a standard used in taxonomies to help control ambiguity about objects and resources. It cuts down on syntactic clutter.
What sort of clutter? Consider the word "football." The term means one thing in America, sure. As soon as we are out of the US, however, it could easily refer to what we yanks call "soccer," or even (in other parts of the world) rugby. As a descriptor, "football" is a poor one.
In the worlds of Iconic Books and Material Scripture, we have a similar problem. Our terms, especially terms like "book" and "text," are imprecise and (at worst) utterly confusing. Since these are the core objects of our discussions, it makes sense to take up discussions to adopt a standard of terms, a "controlled vocabulary," that will allow us to reduce ambiguities as we move forward in our research.
I am by no means the first person to call for such a move. Those who attended the third Iconic Books symposium in 2010 will remember Deirdre Stam's "Talking About 'Iconic Books' in the Terminology of Book History." I feel now - as I said then, as we were commenting on her paper - that this is the single most important matter facing our research. Hands down.
Now that SCRIPT is viable and attracting new members, we are at a perfect point to undertake a serious conversation about finding a scholarly standard for our bibliographic terms - a shared, controlled vocabulary that we can endorse and encourage the use of in all SCRIPT-related endeavors and publications. (Think of this is terms of the SBL Style Guide, for example - in principle if not in execution - offering a standard reference to writers in the field.) Now, precisely when things are still small and manageable, is the ideal time to put such standards in place.
I speak from bitter experience. In the process of writing my dissertation, I concocted an 80-page chapter where - in my utter ignorance - I attempted to develop a vocabulary out of whole cloth for theologians to talk about physical books. It was terrible; a Frankenstein's monster sort of affair. Moreover, it was executed in complete ignorance of the excellent groundwork in bibliographic studies that already exists.
It is my fear, if we don't establish such a standard, that my experience will be shared by many SCRIPT scholars to follow. Each will take their turn at the attempt to define their subject from the ground up, wasting time and effort that could be spent advancing the conversation in new directions.
For those who have never thought about these issues before, let me suggest two starting points for discussion. The first (shorter) is G. Thomas Tanselle's "The Arrangement of Descriptive Bibliographies," from Studies in Bibliography, Volume 37 (1984) and available online here. In the article, Tanselle suggests the second (longer) starting point, which I'd like to also include here, Principles of Bibliographic Description, by Fredson Bowers.
What is needed, ultimately, is a set of terms upon which we agree, that we will use moving forward to reduce ambiguity in our scholarly conversations. Tanselle and Bowers are two sources I have come across in my own research, but I have no doubt many readers of this blog have encountered others that they might suggest. Please do.
My hope (my Christmas wish!) is that this discussion will be taken up across all quarters of the SCRIPT universe in the next couple of years. I encourage my colleagues to follow Deirdre Stam's lead, and to present papers and perhaps whole conference panels where options for standards can be presented and debated. I also encourage robust discussion on these blogs about the question.
There are well-established, robust standards of bibliographic description out there. Let's share them, search out new ones, and eventually decide on the one that will best serve our scholarship. Then let's agree on it, use it, and move forward to the frontiers.
I'm very interested in suggestions and responses. Please share them in the comments below! Thank you, and happy holidays,
David Dault, Washington, PA
A "controlled vocabulary" is a standard used in taxonomies to help control ambiguity about objects and resources. It cuts down on syntactic clutter.
What sort of clutter? Consider the word "football." The term means one thing in America, sure. As soon as we are out of the US, however, it could easily refer to what we yanks call "soccer," or even (in other parts of the world) rugby. As a descriptor, "football" is a poor one.
In the worlds of Iconic Books and Material Scripture, we have a similar problem. Our terms, especially terms like "book" and "text," are imprecise and (at worst) utterly confusing. Since these are the core objects of our discussions, it makes sense to take up discussions to adopt a standard of terms, a "controlled vocabulary," that will allow us to reduce ambiguities as we move forward in our research.
I am by no means the first person to call for such a move. Those who attended the third Iconic Books symposium in 2010 will remember Deirdre Stam's "Talking About 'Iconic Books' in the Terminology of Book History." I feel now - as I said then, as we were commenting on her paper - that this is the single most important matter facing our research. Hands down.
Now that SCRIPT is viable and attracting new members, we are at a perfect point to undertake a serious conversation about finding a scholarly standard for our bibliographic terms - a shared, controlled vocabulary that we can endorse and encourage the use of in all SCRIPT-related endeavors and publications. (Think of this is terms of the SBL Style Guide, for example - in principle if not in execution - offering a standard reference to writers in the field.) Now, precisely when things are still small and manageable, is the ideal time to put such standards in place.
I speak from bitter experience. In the process of writing my dissertation, I concocted an 80-page chapter where - in my utter ignorance - I attempted to develop a vocabulary out of whole cloth for theologians to talk about physical books. It was terrible; a Frankenstein's monster sort of affair. Moreover, it was executed in complete ignorance of the excellent groundwork in bibliographic studies that already exists.
It is my fear, if we don't establish such a standard, that my experience will be shared by many SCRIPT scholars to follow. Each will take their turn at the attempt to define their subject from the ground up, wasting time and effort that could be spent advancing the conversation in new directions.
For those who have never thought about these issues before, let me suggest two starting points for discussion. The first (shorter) is G. Thomas Tanselle's "The Arrangement of Descriptive Bibliographies," from Studies in Bibliography, Volume 37 (1984) and available online here. In the article, Tanselle suggests the second (longer) starting point, which I'd like to also include here, Principles of Bibliographic Description, by Fredson Bowers.
What is needed, ultimately, is a set of terms upon which we agree, that we will use moving forward to reduce ambiguity in our scholarly conversations. Tanselle and Bowers are two sources I have come across in my own research, but I have no doubt many readers of this blog have encountered others that they might suggest. Please do.
My hope (my Christmas wish!) is that this discussion will be taken up across all quarters of the SCRIPT universe in the next couple of years. I encourage my colleagues to follow Deirdre Stam's lead, and to present papers and perhaps whole conference panels where options for standards can be presented and debated. I also encourage robust discussion on these blogs about the question.
There are well-established, robust standards of bibliographic description out there. Let's share them, search out new ones, and eventually decide on the one that will best serve our scholarship. Then let's agree on it, use it, and move forward to the frontiers.
I'm very interested in suggestions and responses. Please share them in the comments below! Thank you, and happy holidays,
David Dault, Washington, PA
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Call for Papers - "From Text(s) to Book(s)" - International conference
CALL FOR PAPERS
An international and SHARP-sponsored conference
‘From Text(s) to Book(s)’
21-23 June 2012
Nancy-Université (Université de Lorraine from Jan. 2012), France
Deadline for proposals: 15 December 2011
I.D.E.A. (‘Théories et pratiques de l’Interdisciplinarité Dans les Etudes Anglophones’ / Interdisciplinarity in English Studies), the research group of the Nancy-Université English Department, will be hosting an international and SHARP-sponsored conference on the subject ‘From Text(s) to Book(s)’. This conference will provide a forum to discuss the ways in which texts are materialised for consumption by the reading public, both historically and in the contemporary context.
Full call for papers can be found here. Conference website is here.
An international and SHARP-sponsored conference
‘From Text(s) to Book(s)’
21-23 June 2012
Nancy-Université (Université de Lorraine from Jan. 2012), France
Deadline for proposals: 15 December 2011
I.D.E.A. (‘Théories et pratiques de l’Interdisciplinarité Dans les Etudes Anglophones’ / Interdisciplinarity in English Studies), the research group of the Nancy-Université English Department, will be hosting an international and SHARP-sponsored conference on the subject ‘From Text(s) to Book(s)’. This conference will provide a forum to discuss the ways in which texts are materialised for consumption by the reading public, both historically and in the contemporary context.
Full call for papers can be found here. Conference website is here.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Society for Textual Scholarship 2012 Call for Papers
CALL FOR PAPERS
The Society for Textual Scholarship
International Interdisciplinary Conference
31 May 2 June 2012
The University of Texas at Austin
Program Chairs: Coleman Hutchison & Matt Cohen, The University of Texas at Austin
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:
George Bornstein, The University of Michigan
Jeffrey Masten, Northwestern University
Phillip H. Round, The University of Iowa
Deadline for Proposals: January 2, 2012
This off-year conference will bring the Society for Textual Scholarship to a campus with internationally significant archival holdings, in one of the most interesting cities in the United States. A number of on-campus resources–the Harry Ransom Center, the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, and the Benson Latin American Collection, among others–and the vast multicultural attractions of Texas¹s capital city and technology hub make this an exciting venue for the meeting.
The Program Chairs invite a broad set of proposals on the discovery, enumeration, description, bibliographical analysis, editing, annotation, and mark-up of texts in disciplines such as literature, history, musicology, classical and biblical studies, philosophy, art history, legal history, the history of science and technology, computer science, library and information science, archives, lexicography, epigraphy, paleography, codicology, cinema studies, new media studies, game studies, theater, linguistics, women¹s studies, race and ethnicity studies, indigenous studies, and textual and literary theory.
Given the local context of the conference, we especially encourage submissions dealing with issues of race, ethnicity, cross-cultural textual questions, and translation–issues reflected in our choice of keynote speakers. As always, the conference is particularly open to considerations of the role of digital tools and technologies in textual theory and practice. Papers addressing aspects of archival theory and practice as they pertain to textual criticism and scholarly editing are also most welcome.
Submissions may take one of the following forms:
1. Papers. Papers should be no more than 20 minutes in length. They should offer the promise of substantial critical or analytical insight. Papers that are primarily reports or demonstrations of tools or projects are discouraged.
2. Panels. Panels may consist of either three associated papers or four or five roundtable speakers. Roundtables should address topics of broad interest and scope, with the goal of fostering lively debate between the panel and audience following brief opening remarks.
3. Workshops. Workshops should pose a specific problem, tool, or skill set for which the workshop leader will provide expert guidance and instruction. Examples might include an introduction to forensic computing or paleography. Workshop leaders should be prepared to offer well-defined learning outcomes for attendees, and describe them in the proposal. Proposals that are accepted will be announced on the conference website <http://www.textual.org> and attendees will be required to enroll with the workshop leader(s). NB: All workshops will be scheduled for Thursday, 31 May 2012.
Proposals for all formats should include a title; abstract of the proposed paper, panel, seminar, or workshop (500 words maximum); and the name, e-mail address, and institutional affiliation for each participant. Workshop proposals in particular should take care to articulate the imagined audience and any expectations of prior knowledge or preparation.
***All proposals should indicate what, if any, technological support will be required.***
*NB: We have secured on-campus housing for the conference at the rate of $70 per night. Conference participants who wish to arrive early and/or stay late–perhaps to take advantage of UT’s vaunted archival resources or Austin’s music scene–are welcome to do so.*
Inquiries and proposals should be submitted electronically to:
Professor Coleman Hutchison
Additional contact information:
Department of English
1 University Station B5000
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX 78712
Phone: (512) 471-8372
Fax: (512) 471-4909 (marked clearly to Coleman Hutchison¹s attention)
All participants in the 2012 STS conference must be members of STS. For information about membership, please contact Secretary Meg Roland at <mroland@marylhurst.edu> or visit the Indiana University Press Journals website and follow the links to the Society for Textual Scholarship membership page: <http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/>.
For conference updates and information, see the STS website at <http://www.textual.org>.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Report from the AAR pre-conference meetings
I arrived Thursday afternoon, and have been having a very fruitful set of discussions with colleagues as part of the Society for Scriptural Reasoning pre-conference plenary.
Peter Ochs, the organizer, has characterized the discussions as "the first Abrahamic revival meeting." Our sessions were divided between time spent doing SR around a collection of texts on music, and discussions of the future of SR practice in Europe and North America.
For the music study, we looked at several Suras from the Qur'an, a passage from Chronicles, and a passage from the Book of Revelation. What I found most fascinating (and had not known before beginning the study) is that there is no mention of music in the Qur'an. I found that incredibly surprising, but as time went on, that fact opened up an amazing discussion about the way in which interpretive traditions will insinuate and "read" things into texts that are not literally present, and the hermeneutic problems (and possibilities) that ensue.
This evening I will participate in a second (and unrelated) pre-conference symposium dealing with the upcoming edited anthology from the Liturgical Press's Rock and Theology project, to which I have contributed a chapter.
Exhausting day, but a really good day as well.
Peter Ochs, the organizer, has characterized the discussions as "the first Abrahamic revival meeting." Our sessions were divided between time spent doing SR around a collection of texts on music, and discussions of the future of SR practice in Europe and North America.
For the music study, we looked at several Suras from the Qur'an, a passage from Chronicles, and a passage from the Book of Revelation. What I found most fascinating (and had not known before beginning the study) is that there is no mention of music in the Qur'an. I found that incredibly surprising, but as time went on, that fact opened up an amazing discussion about the way in which interpretive traditions will insinuate and "read" things into texts that are not literally present, and the hermeneutic problems (and possibilities) that ensue.
This evening I will participate in a second (and unrelated) pre-conference symposium dealing with the upcoming edited anthology from the Liturgical Press's Rock and Theology project, to which I have contributed a chapter.
Exhausting day, but a really good day as well.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Several interviews with Robert Alter
Robert Alter is speaking at the University of Memphis tomorrow evening (Thursday, November 10th, 2011 at 6:30pm in the University Theater). As a result of his visit, several local blogs and publications are printing interviews.
Leonard Gill's &tcetera blog also has an interview. One question Gill asks Alter in particular was of great interest to me:
"Working as a translator of the Bible," Alter says, "has paradoxically increased both my admiration for the KJV and my reservations about it. The grandeur of the seventeenth-century translation and, at least in the prose, its adherence to the wonderful simplicity and concreteness of the original, have become more vividly clear to me. At the same time, as I look over my shoulder at my fellow-translators of four centuries past, I am sometimes exasperated with them for deploying wordiness where the Hebrew is beautifully compact, for ignoring the expressive rhythms of the Hebrew poetry, and for introducing ecclesiastical terms alien to the original."You can read the full interview at the Chapter 16 blog, run by the Nashville Public Library.
Leonard Gill's &tcetera blog also has an interview. One question Gill asks Alter in particular was of great interest to me:
Again, you can read the whole interview at the &tcetera blog, run by the Memphis Flyer.Gill: What do you think of the proliferation of "niche" Bibles today — loose translations to appeal to a particular group of contemporary readers?
Alter: The King James had become more or less canonical for English readers, but in the late 19th century, when it was thought there were problems — that it was archaic; that it was inaccurate — there was a revised version, which still tried to preserve the general translations of the King James Bible.
But after the Second World War, there were various committees producing different translations: the New English Bible, the Catholic Jerusalem Bible, the Jewish Bible from the Jewish Publication Society. All these were guided — or, I would say, misguided — by the principle that you have to render the Bible in ways that are entirely compatible with modern idiomatic usage. They abandoned word-for-word translation drastically. They repackaged the syntax. They substituted modern idioms for biblical ones.
Stylistically, the consequences of that strategy have been pretty disastrous. In my own translations, I've gone back much closer to the word-for-word strategy.
SCRIPT call for papers for EIR 2012
Just got this announcement from Jim Watts:
Call for Papers
SCRIPT will meet concurrently with the Eastern International Region of the AAR again on May 4-5, 2012, in Waterloo, Ontario.
We invite paper proposals in all areas of interest to SCRIPT. Each proposal should contain the following in a single e-mail attachment in MS Word format:
- One-page abstract (300 words maximum) describing the nature of the paper or panel
- Current CV for the participant(s)
- Cover page that includes the submitter’s full name, title, institution, phone number, fax number, e-mail, and mailing address. For panel proposals, identify the primary contact person.
Send proposal to scriptsecretary@gmail.com. The deadline for submissions is January 31, 2012. Only those proposals received by the deadline will be considered for inclusion in the program. Scholars must be members either of SCRIPT or the AAR in order to register for the conference and present papers.
Presentations are limited to twenty minutes, with ten minutes allowed for questions. If you require technological support for your presentation/panel (such as an Internet connection or audio and projection equipment), you must request it with your proposal.
Monday, September 12, 2011
APHA Conference deadlines approaching
For folks who might be interested in attending the 2011 American Printing History Association conference in San Diego this fall, the deadline for Early Bird registration is this Thursday, September 15th.The theme this year is "Printing from the Edge":
The conference takes place October 14-15 at UC San Diego. More information can be found here at the APHA website.
What have been the transformative moments in printing history that have changed the direction of printing, typography, papermaking, bookbinding, or book design, and moved us to a new edge? What are today’s frontiers? Where is tomorrow’s edge?
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
March 2011 Conference Update
This month I presented papers pertaining to Material Scripture at two conferences. They were well received, and the conversations that followed were fruitful. So fruitful, in fact, that I'm looking into expanding at least one of them into a journal article. Here's hoping I find the time!
The first paper is "Hidden Among the Leaves: Protestant and Catholic Battles for Theological Identity Across the First Pages of Scripture," which I presented at the SECSOR conference in Louisville, KY. This paper describes some of my findings from last Summer's visits to the Pitts and Concordia rare book archives. Listen to audio of the presentation here.
The second paper is "A Hospitality of Suspicion: Scriptural Reasoning and Material Scripture in the Tent of Meeting," which I presented in a panel on Scriptural Reasoning at the Mid-Atlantic regional meeting of the AAR, held in New Brunswick, NJ. Audio from the presentation is available here.
At both conferences I got the chance to tell folks about SCRIPT, and made good new connections with people interested in asking material questions about Scripture.
In May, I'll be heading to Syracuse to present in a panel on Iconic Books.
The first paper is "Hidden Among the Leaves: Protestant and Catholic Battles for Theological Identity Across the First Pages of Scripture," which I presented at the SECSOR conference in Louisville, KY. This paper describes some of my findings from last Summer's visits to the Pitts and Concordia rare book archives. Listen to audio of the presentation here.
The second paper is "A Hospitality of Suspicion: Scriptural Reasoning and Material Scripture in the Tent of Meeting," which I presented in a panel on Scriptural Reasoning at the Mid-Atlantic regional meeting of the AAR, held in New Brunswick, NJ. Audio from the presentation is available here.
At both conferences I got the chance to tell folks about SCRIPT, and made good new connections with people interested in asking material questions about Scripture.
In May, I'll be heading to Syracuse to present in a panel on Iconic Books.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
November symposium at Rhodes on Shakespeare and the 1611 King James Bible
I just received word from Professor Scott Newstock, in the English department over at Rhodes College here in Memphis, about a symposium about Shakespeare and the King James Bible on November 11, 2011.
I've been in conversation with Scott about this, and there is hope that we can get some citywide events going on. I'm also looking into what can be done at Christian Brothers University, where I teach, to speak to the "Catholic perspective" on the KJV.
Very exciting year coming up. Happy Birthday, Authorized Version!
See the website for the symposium here.
I've been in conversation with Scott about this, and there is hope that we can get some citywide events going on. I'm also looking into what can be done at Christian Brothers University, where I teach, to speak to the "Catholic perspective" on the KJV.
Very exciting year coming up. Happy Birthday, Authorized Version!
See the website for the symposium here.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
The Book: The Bible Illuminated discussion at 2010 SBL
There will be a discussion of the Bible Illuminated series at this November's Society of Biblical Literature conference in Atlanta.
Ideology, Culture, and Translation/Bible and Visual Art (S22-321)
Monday, Nov 22, 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM
Room: A701 - Marriott Marquis
This session will focus on the recently published Bible Illuminated (2008). Additional information and a sample chapter are available at http://illuminatedworld.com . Bible Illuminated is a bright, dynamic and evocative interpretation of the Bible. Intermixed with the text are vivid images, all meant to inspire discussion and instigate the interchange of perspectives.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Proceedings posted online for the "Invention, Rewriting, Usurpation" Conference
The recent conference, "Invention, rewriting, usurpation: Discursive fights over religious traditions in antiquity," hosted by Aarhus University in Denmark, has posted recordings and videos of the major proceedings and papers for the conference online.
You can access the footage and recordings here.
You can access the footage and recordings here.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Panel proposal on "Material Scripture" accepted by AAR
I am happy to report that the panel we have proposed to discuss the growing fields of "Material Scripture" and "Iconic Books" has been accepted. We will be presenting the panel during the Sunday "wildcard" sessions at the American Academy of Religion conference this fall in Atlanta (October 30 - November 2).
The one update of note at this point is that Brent Plate, with regret, has withdrawn his paper, as he has received a grant to study material religious culture in Japan that will take him out of the country during the dates of the conference. We have just confirmed that James S. Bielo, author of Words upon the Word: An Ethnography of Evangelical Group Bible Study
, will take Brent's place on the panel.
I will post more updates as they are available. Meanwhile, if you plan to be at the conference, or in the area, please make plans to attend. It's going to be a great discussion!
The one update of note at this point is that Brent Plate, with regret, has withdrawn his paper, as he has received a grant to study material religious culture in Japan that will take him out of the country during the dates of the conference. We have just confirmed that James S. Bielo, author of Words upon the Word: An Ethnography of Evangelical Group Bible Study
, will take Brent's place on the panel.I will post more updates as they are available. Meanwhile, if you plan to be at the conference, or in the area, please make plans to attend. It's going to be a great discussion!
Sewanee's School of Theology chosen as one of six sites for project exploring the function of the Bible in the worldwide Anglican communion
[Posted originally on the University of the South alumni webmail, here]
The School of Theology at Sewanee: The University of the South has been chosen as one of six sites worldwide to host a regional group working on a major new project of the Anglican Communion. The School of Theology will host the North American group that will be part of a new exploration of the ways the Bible functions in the life of the Church.
The Rev. Robert MacSwain OGS, instructor of theology and Christian ethics at Sewanee, has been named the coordinator of the regional group, which will organize the project’s case study work within Canada and the United States.
“The Bible in the Life of the Church” project was launched by the Anglican Communion late in 2009. It aims to explore how Anglicans in different contexts actually use the Bible by exploring Scripture together and reflecting on the encounter; to produce resource materials for use at all levels of Christian education; and to re-evaluate the ways in which Anglicans have heard, studied, and received Scripture.
This major three-year project was mandated by the Anglican Consultative Council at its Jamaica meeting in May 2009. It has been described by the Archbishop of Canterbury as a “serious examination of how the Bible is used in our [the Anglican Communion’s] worship and decision-making.”
While much of the project’s work will be prepared by the regionally-based groups and brought to a Communion-wide coordinating group, local groups within each region will take part in the project by contributing to and testing the material that emerges from the work of the regional groups. MacSwain says, “In this way, the project will involve wide grassroots
participation from around the Communion, as well as draw upon the work of academic biblical scholars and theologians.”
Other regional groups are based around theological education institutions in East Africa, Southern Africa, South East Asia, Oceania, and Britain.
The Very Rev. Dr. William S. Stafford, dean of the School of Theology, says, "With our faculty, who all think hard and care deeply about the Scripture's use in the church, and with Education for Ministry spreading particularly effective ways for adults to reflect on the Word and their lives, Sewanee is a natural site for a project such as this. We are honored to serve the Anglican Communion in this way."
Thursday, May 13, 2010
International conference in Denmark: Invention, rewriting, usurpation: Discursive fights over religious traditions in antiquity
I just found out about this upcoming conference. It is too late to get a paper proposal in to them, but if you are near Denmark, and interested in questions of ideology and canon formation with regard to ancient Scripture, this would be right up your alley. Wish I could attend.
Invention, rewriting, usurpation: Discursive fights over religious traditions in antiquity
International conference 31 May - 4 June 2010
Invention, rewriting, usurpation: Discursive fights over religious traditions in antiquity
International conference 31 May - 4 June 2010
- CONFERENCE PROGRAMME (pdf)
How did ancient religious texts and traditions attain status as normative and canonic? Which ideological and rhetorical strategies were used in the struggle for normative status of specific texts and traditions? The conference will explore these questions under the following five headings:
- Reuse, Rewriting and Usurpation of Biblical and Classical Texts
- Invention and Maintenance of Religious Traditions: Theoretical and Historical Perspectives
- Orthodoxy and Heresy
- Formation of the Biblical Canon
- Canons, Classics and Foundation Texts in Antiquity: A Comparative Perspective
Organiser: Centre for the Study of Antiquity and Christianity, Faculty of Theology, Aarhus University
Conference website available hereThursday, March 11, 2010
Information about upcoming Glasgow Conference, "Re-Writing the Bible"
The following is available online here
Re-Writing the Bible: Devotion, Diatribe and Dialogue
14th-15th June 2010
University of Glasgow
Keynote panellists include Michael Schmidt, Michael Symmons-Roberts,
Kei Miller, Sara Maitland and Michelene Wandor.
“…there is no reading of a work which is not also a ‘re-writing’.”
- Terry Eagleton
A recent exhibition at the Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art consisted of a bible, laid open alongside a supply of pens, with the invitation, “If you feel you’ve been excluded from the Bible, please feel free to find a way to write yourself back in.” The comments scribbled in the margins—and the very notion of ‘writing in the Bible’—became the subject of a widespread controversy, resulting in the gallery’s decision to place this bible inside a perspex cube, effectively sealing it off and protecting it from what might be deemed ‘undesirable’ commentary. Visitors were still invited to write comments, but now they were written on sheets of paper that were then selected by gallery staff and inserted between the bible’s pages.
In light of this very present debate, Re-Writing the Bible: Devotion, Diatribe and Dialogue invites poets, writers, and scholars to engage with interdisciplinary questions surrounding the phenomena of retellings or revisions of Bible in creative writing. These retellings have a heritage that, arguably, starts within the books of the Bible itself and stretches across many literatures and traditions; poets and writers in every age filter biblical themes and images through the
focus of their own period and practice. Dante, Milton, Bunyan, Blake, Yeats, Owen, H.D, Plath, Kinsella, Hill; the list is long, diverse, and continues to grow.
This symposium asks why contemporary writers have chosen to rework this particular source text, and what stances they have taken towards it: faithful, using creative writing as a means of prayerful reflection or theological exegesis? Or furious, a railing against the Bible’s injustices and absences? Or a mixture of both, a sometimes difficult, sometimes delightful kind of dialogue? If every reading is also a re-writing, then it follows that every re-writing is also a reading, and for this reason many biblical scholars are fascinated by the literary ‘afterlives’ of the scriptures, the ways in which the Bible is sustained by creative imaginations in cultural settings and times very distant from its own writing and compilation.
We are seeking 20-minute papers from a variety of disciplines and perspectives, including but not limited to: literature, theology, biblical studies, critical and cultural theory, history, politics, and so on. We will consider papers on all forms of ‘creative writing’: poetry, novel, short story, sermon, liturgy, prayers, songs, political writing, theatre, and so on. Our emphasis is on twentieth and twenty-first century works, but we will also consider abstracts on rewritings from other periods. We would be particularly interested in papers looking at spaces that often go unexplored by research in retelling and revisioning, such as biblical romance novels, evangelical speculative fiction, biblical archetypes in autobiography, contemporary liturgy, or popular music. There is the possibility that proceedings will be published.
Please send abstracts (approx. 200 words) to rewritingbible2010@gmail.com, by no later than 19th April 2010.
Re-Writing the Bible: Devotion, Diatribe and Dialogue
14th-15th June 2010
University of Glasgow
Keynote panellists include Michael Schmidt, Michael Symmons-Roberts,
Kei Miller, Sara Maitland and Michelene Wandor.
“…there is no reading of a work which is not also a ‘re-writing’.”
- Terry Eagleton
A recent exhibition at the Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art consisted of a bible, laid open alongside a supply of pens, with the invitation, “If you feel you’ve been excluded from the Bible, please feel free to find a way to write yourself back in.” The comments scribbled in the margins—and the very notion of ‘writing in the Bible’—became the subject of a widespread controversy, resulting in the gallery’s decision to place this bible inside a perspex cube, effectively sealing it off and protecting it from what might be deemed ‘undesirable’ commentary. Visitors were still invited to write comments, but now they were written on sheets of paper that were then selected by gallery staff and inserted between the bible’s pages.
In light of this very present debate, Re-Writing the Bible: Devotion, Diatribe and Dialogue invites poets, writers, and scholars to engage with interdisciplinary questions surrounding the phenomena of retellings or revisions of Bible in creative writing. These retellings have a heritage that, arguably, starts within the books of the Bible itself and stretches across many literatures and traditions; poets and writers in every age filter biblical themes and images through the
focus of their own period and practice. Dante, Milton, Bunyan, Blake, Yeats, Owen, H.D, Plath, Kinsella, Hill; the list is long, diverse, and continues to grow.
This symposium asks why contemporary writers have chosen to rework this particular source text, and what stances they have taken towards it: faithful, using creative writing as a means of prayerful reflection or theological exegesis? Or furious, a railing against the Bible’s injustices and absences? Or a mixture of both, a sometimes difficult, sometimes delightful kind of dialogue? If every reading is also a re-writing, then it follows that every re-writing is also a reading, and for this reason many biblical scholars are fascinated by the literary ‘afterlives’ of the scriptures, the ways in which the Bible is sustained by creative imaginations in cultural settings and times very distant from its own writing and compilation.
We are seeking 20-minute papers from a variety of disciplines and perspectives, including but not limited to: literature, theology, biblical studies, critical and cultural theory, history, politics, and so on. We will consider papers on all forms of ‘creative writing’: poetry, novel, short story, sermon, liturgy, prayers, songs, political writing, theatre, and so on. Our emphasis is on twentieth and twenty-first century works, but we will also consider abstracts on rewritings from other periods. We would be particularly interested in papers looking at spaces that often go unexplored by research in retelling and revisioning, such as biblical romance novels, evangelical speculative fiction, biblical archetypes in autobiography, contemporary liturgy, or popular music. There is the possibility that proceedings will be published.
Please send abstracts (approx. 200 words) to rewritingbible2010@gmail.com, by no later than 19th April 2010.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
American Academy of Religion proposal for a panel to discuss Material Scripture
The following is the text of the proposal we turned in this week to the AAR. We are hopeful the committee will pick it up and let us do the panel. Keep fingers crossed.
From well before the advent of movable-type printing techniques, the Holy Bible has been a marketed object. This fact has only become more apparent in recent decades, with the rise of Bibles increasingly tailored to demographics and identity.
This panel will explore the physical forms that Scripture takes, as it is presented to readers in various iterations as a printed artifact. Thus the phrase, “Material Scripture,” describes a practice of inquiry that seeks to examine the culture of mass-market Bibles in North America by analyzing the Bibles themselves.
Raymond Williams’s argument, that “we cannot separate literature and art from other kinds of social practice, in such a way as to make them subject to quite special and distinct laws,” became the kernel for a method of literary criticism known as “cultural materialism.” This method, most visibly applied to the field of Shakespeare studies through the publication of Dollimore and Sinfeld’s Political Shakespeare (1985), has been adopted, and adapted, in recent years by a group of biblical scholars and theologians. Working under a variety of names, including “Iconic Books,” “Material Religion” and “Material Scripture,” these scholars are creating an international dialogue as to the various methodologies and practicalities of this “materialist” approach to biblical criticism.
This panel proposes to draw together several of the active scholars in this growing field of inquiry. We are at a point where it is appropriate that our discussions have a wider level of participation and become more public. Thus we are proposing this panel as a forum for a series of differing but complementary examples of “materialist” approaches to scripture.
A mass-produced Bible is both highly designed and, to an ever-increasing degree, a “designer” object. Published Bibles that reflect the demographics of certain aspects of American culture and lifestyle preferences are becoming prevalent in the marketplace, and this trend is not necessarily well addressed by the current methods of biblical criticism. In this panel, Brent Plate, Timothy Beal, and David Dault will offer varying perspectives on a more “materialist” approach to the printed Bible. These explorations of the physicality and genealogy of printed Bibles open up avenues of ideological and theological critique that stretch far back into the history of modern versions of Scripture and into the history of Western print culture itself. Dori Parmenter will respond, and James Watts will chair the proceedings.
The panelists, and their projects, are as follows:
S. Brent Rodriguez Plate (Hamilton College), “Looking at Words” – Typeface and page design matters. The matter (i.e., materiality and thus visuality) of words is as important as the semantics of them. “The Word” in Gothic font means one thing. “The Word” in Helvetica means something quite different. The presentation includes two key points. First, printed words are images, and the so-called Word-Image split ignores the visuality of script, typeface, and layout. Second, interpretation is emotional and affective. There can then be no clear-cut distinction between the semantic dimensions of texts and the iconic and performative dimensions. The rationality of semantics is not separable from the experiential appearance of words. They impact us emotionally, rationally, and, usually, subliminally.
Timothy K. Beal (Case Western Reserve University), “The Materiality of the Bible as Icon” – This multimedia presentation will incorporate a series of cultural representations of the Bible. The initial part of the presentation will involve a montage of images from film and video that demonstrate how the physical presence of the Bible in such representations can function in a totemic or iconic fashion. A brief theoretical reflection upon and discussion of the montage will follow. In this discussion, Beal will examine how the “cultural iconicity” of the Bible seems to be able to contain the plural materialities of Scripture — and how far that iconicity can be stretched to include new and radically different material forms.
David Dault (Christian Brothers University), “From Cultural Materialism to Material Scripture: Developing a Functional Methodology” – This paper will take a step back from the practices of material criticism represented by the first two papers, and offer an analysis of the developing process of material biblical criticism. “Material Scripture” will be presented as an ethically based ideological critique of the practice of"embedding" theologies and hermeneutic guidance into the visual and paratextual corpus of published Bibles, and some initial methodologies for its practice will be identified.
Response to the presentations will come from Dori Parmenter (Spalding University), and the session will be chaired by James Watts (Syracuse University), both of whom have worked in developing the “Iconic Scriptures” project, based at Syracuse University, which has approached a similar range of concerns with a different set of methodologies and assumptions. The inclusion of this alternative approach will, it is hoped, lead to a rich and generative discussion of the wider issues at stake in these disparate approaches to scripture.
Abstract
A mass-produced Bible is both highly designed and, to an ever-increasing degree, a “designer” object. Published Bibles that reflect the demographics of certain aspects of American culture and lifestyle preferences are becoming prevalent in the marketplace, and this trend is not necessarily well addressed by the current methods of biblical criticism. In this panel, Brent Plate, Timothy Beal, and David Dault will offer varying perspectives on a more “materialist” approach to the printed Bible. These explorations of the physicality and genealogy of printed Bibles open up avenues of ideological and theological critique that stretch far back into the history of modern versions of Scripture and into the history of Western print culture itself. Dori Parmenter will respond and James Watts will chair the session.
From well before the advent of movable-type printing techniques, the Holy Bible has been a marketed object. This fact has only become more apparent in recent decades, with the rise of Bibles increasingly tailored to demographics and identity.
This panel will explore the physical forms that Scripture takes, as it is presented to readers in various iterations as a printed artifact. Thus the phrase, “Material Scripture,” describes a practice of inquiry that seeks to examine the culture of mass-market Bibles in North America by analyzing the Bibles themselves.
Raymond Williams’s argument, that “we cannot separate literature and art from other kinds of social practice, in such a way as to make them subject to quite special and distinct laws,” became the kernel for a method of literary criticism known as “cultural materialism.” This method, most visibly applied to the field of Shakespeare studies through the publication of Dollimore and Sinfeld’s Political Shakespeare (1985), has been adopted, and adapted, in recent years by a group of biblical scholars and theologians. Working under a variety of names, including “Iconic Books,” “Material Religion” and “Material Scripture,” these scholars are creating an international dialogue as to the various methodologies and practicalities of this “materialist” approach to biblical criticism.
This panel proposes to draw together several of the active scholars in this growing field of inquiry. We are at a point where it is appropriate that our discussions have a wider level of participation and become more public. Thus we are proposing this panel as a forum for a series of differing but complementary examples of “materialist” approaches to scripture.
A mass-produced Bible is both highly designed and, to an ever-increasing degree, a “designer” object. Published Bibles that reflect the demographics of certain aspects of American culture and lifestyle preferences are becoming prevalent in the marketplace, and this trend is not necessarily well addressed by the current methods of biblical criticism. In this panel, Brent Plate, Timothy Beal, and David Dault will offer varying perspectives on a more “materialist” approach to the printed Bible. These explorations of the physicality and genealogy of printed Bibles open up avenues of ideological and theological critique that stretch far back into the history of modern versions of Scripture and into the history of Western print culture itself. Dori Parmenter will respond, and James Watts will chair the proceedings.
The panelists, and their projects, are as follows:
S. Brent Rodriguez Plate (Hamilton College), “Looking at Words” – Typeface and page design matters. The matter (i.e., materiality and thus visuality) of words is as important as the semantics of them. “The Word” in Gothic font means one thing. “The Word” in Helvetica means something quite different. The presentation includes two key points. First, printed words are images, and the so-called Word-Image split ignores the visuality of script, typeface, and layout. Second, interpretation is emotional and affective. There can then be no clear-cut distinction between the semantic dimensions of texts and the iconic and performative dimensions. The rationality of semantics is not separable from the experiential appearance of words. They impact us emotionally, rationally, and, usually, subliminally.
Timothy K. Beal (Case Western Reserve University), “The Materiality of the Bible as Icon” – This multimedia presentation will incorporate a series of cultural representations of the Bible. The initial part of the presentation will involve a montage of images from film and video that demonstrate how the physical presence of the Bible in such representations can function in a totemic or iconic fashion. A brief theoretical reflection upon and discussion of the montage will follow. In this discussion, Beal will examine how the “cultural iconicity” of the Bible seems to be able to contain the plural materialities of Scripture — and how far that iconicity can be stretched to include new and radically different material forms.
David Dault (Christian Brothers University), “From Cultural Materialism to Material Scripture: Developing a Functional Methodology” – This paper will take a step back from the practices of material criticism represented by the first two papers, and offer an analysis of the developing process of material biblical criticism. “Material Scripture” will be presented as an ethically based ideological critique of the practice of"embedding" theologies and hermeneutic guidance into the visual and paratextual corpus of published Bibles, and some initial methodologies for its practice will be identified.
Response to the presentations will come from Dori Parmenter (Spalding University), and the session will be chaired by James Watts (Syracuse University), both of whom have worked in developing the “Iconic Scriptures” project, based at Syracuse University, which has approached a similar range of concerns with a different set of methodologies and assumptions. The inclusion of this alternative approach will, it is hoped, lead to a rich and generative discussion of the wider issues at stake in these disparate approaches to scripture.
Abstract
A mass-produced Bible is both highly designed and, to an ever-increasing degree, a “designer” object. Published Bibles that reflect the demographics of certain aspects of American culture and lifestyle preferences are becoming prevalent in the marketplace, and this trend is not necessarily well addressed by the current methods of biblical criticism. In this panel, Brent Plate, Timothy Beal, and David Dault will offer varying perspectives on a more “materialist” approach to the printed Bible. These explorations of the physicality and genealogy of printed Bibles open up avenues of ideological and theological critique that stretch far back into the history of modern versions of Scripture and into the history of Western print culture itself. Dori Parmenter will respond and James Watts will chair the session.
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