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.

Call for Papers for a special issue of English Language Notes

The following Call for Papers was passed on to me by S. Brent Rodriguez Plate, president of SCRIPT:

ELN 50.2 (Fall/Winter 2012): “Scriptural Margins: On the Boundaries of Sacred Texts.”

English Language Notes

Contact email: eln2@colorado.edu

Deadline: March 15, 2012

This special issue invites nontraditional examinations of sacred texts from major religious traditions, including those of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, or Buddhism. We seek readings of scriptures that carve out an interpretive space between religious and secular modes of response. Such readings may be informed by recent critical movements – queer theory, affect theory, ontotheology, biopolitics, etc..

They may investigate the usually complex and uncertain process by which a text moves from sacred to secular status (or from sacred back to secular). They may engage the question of how traditional interpretations bend, mutate, or sustain themselves in the wake of cultural changes or political exigencies.

They may examine the dynamic and mutually transformative exchanges between religious hermeneutics and secular modes of interpretation (e.g. legal, literary, psychoanalytic). Papers submitted for this issue may theorize on the relationship between commentaries, treatises and sacred texts - - on the ways, for example, that commentaries enter into the historical lives of scriptures, inscribing them with meanings that become naturalized. Or they may explore the paths by which scripture flows into non-scriptural writings -- poetry, fiction, or song – and how such paths reconfigure or coexist with the division between a sacred and a non-sacred text. Or they may track the fate of a sacred text as it moves across cultural and geographical boundaries, finding new communities of believers and generating new readings, whether as recognitions or misrecognitions of the readings adopted by preceding schools of believers. In all cases, contributors will be motivated by a desire to operate outside the engrained opposition between religious and secular discourses and by the desire for a mode of reading that isn’t reducible to spiritual or anti-spiritual programs, to immediately recognizable acts of heterodoxy or piety. Consideration will be given to critical essays, creative writings, and to writings that are combinations of the two. We also welcome round-table discussions on particular sub-topics and reviews or review articles of recent books relevant to the issue’s theme.

Please send double-spaced, 12-point font contributions adhering to the Chicago-style endnote citation format in hard copy and on CD-ROM to the address below:

Special Issue Editor, “Scriptural Margins”
English Language Notes
University of Colorado at Boulder
226 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0226

Specific inquiries may be addressed to the issue editor, Sue Zemka, zemka@colorado.edu. The deadline for submissions for the first issue is March 15, 2012

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.

From Brent Plate, Editor of the Encyclopdia of the Bible and Its Reception

[I just received this email from Brent. If you have interest in writing an entry from the list below, please contact him directly]

Dear all,

After several transitions (in personnel and technology), de Gruyter's Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception is moving full steam ahead. I have immediate need for several entries, all due in the next couple weeks. I am looking for entries (lengths of 250-2000 words, negotiable depending on importance of entry) on the reception of the bible with regard the topics listed below:

Day of Judgement

Death, Dying

Deborah

Delilah

Deluge

Demons, Demonology

Descent into the Netherworld/Hell

Devil

Disney, Walt

Dormition and Assumption of Mary

Dove

Drama

After that, the "E" entries will begin. A new list will come around soon with those entries. If you have any interest in writing on topics beginning with "E" and beyond, do let me know.

with best wishes,

Brent Plate

* * * * * * * * *

S Brent Rodriguez Plate

Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies

Hamilton College

198 College Hill Rd

Clinton, NY 13323

p] 315.859.4587

f] 315.859.4390

http://www.sbrentplate.net

Call for Entries for the Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception

[I recently received the following information from Brent Plate, editor of the Material Religion journal and one of the editors of this Encyclopedia project. Please consider contributing to this valuable effort!]

Walter de Gruyter Publishing House in Berlin, having recently finished the Theologische Realenzyklopädie (TRE), is now publishing an equally ambitious research tool – an Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception (EBR) in 30 volumes. Volumes 1 and 2 were published in 2009, and volumes 3-6 are currently in production for 2010 publication.

EBR will be published in English and will be the first comprehensive biblical research tool to incorporate fully the history of interpretation and reception into an encyclopedic treatment of the Bible. This project will shape future scholarship on the Bible and its cultural and historical reception. EBR will, on the one hand, trace in comprehensive detail the impact of historical persons, places, topics, etc. on the Bible, and, on the other hand, the reception of the Bible, i.e. the reception of biblical books, persons, places, flora and fauna, pericopes, topics, motifs etc. in the history of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, other world religions, literature, visual arts, music, theater and film.

There are ongoing opportunities for publishing shorter (~200 words), longer (~2000 words), and in-between, entries on topics related to religion and film. 2010 begins the entries beginning with the letter "D."

To give example of the range of topics covered, previous entries on film include:

-Abraham

-Angels

-Atheism

-Blasphemy

-Buñuel

-Cain

-Celibacy

-Chaos

-Desert

There are many more entries, but this gives a sense of the range of interests: specific directors, specific films, general biblical topics, and biblical characters and motifs.

For further information, questions, and for examples of already published entries, please contact Brent Plate: splate@hamilton.edu

For info on the EBR, see: http://www.bible-encyclopedia.com