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.
Showing posts with label Proposals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Proposals. Show all posts
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Thursday, June 17, 2010
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,
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
Thursday, May 27, 2010
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
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, 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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