Medieval Byzantine mosaic of Mary, with child and genealogy | Church of the Holy Savior in Chora, Istanbul | Image Source
On AJR
Dissertation Spotlight: Philip Fackler, “Forging Christianity: Jews and Christians in Pseudo-Ignatius,” PhD Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2017
Fackler: “My project thus asks what it might look like to focus on the effects of texts and textual production, to analyze not only the rhetoric of texts within specific social contexts but also to account for the multiple agents, practices, and material limitations that affect dissemination and reproduction. By looking at the letters attributed to Ignatius of Antioch, my project was able to raise broader questions about authorship, the effects of textual production, and religious identity.”
Book Note: Mira Wasserman. Jews, Gentiles, and Other Animals: The Talmud after the Humanities. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017.
Tong: “Wasserman’s book does something very important: it sets the table for a new kind of conversation––one where the Talmud can lead to a greater understanding of theory, not just the other way around. It is not difficult to imagine Wasserman’s work inspiring dozens of others. Might we explore how AZ’s constructions and de-constructions of boundaries could shed new light on Homi Bhabha’s concept of hybridity (cf. Location of Culture)? Are there new ways of understanding Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizomatic theory, or their enfolded body (cf. A Thousand Plateaus), through a comparison to AZ’s account of the relationship between bodies and objects? Could we use the not-quite-posthumanism in AZ to (re-)evaluate the usefulness of Foucauldian biopolitics as analytical tool?”
Articles and News
Miri Fenton reviews Shyovitz’s fabulous book on the intersection of nature and the supernatural.
Terrific interview with two scholars who accidentally found themselves chasing down the Prague golem tradition.
Q&A with Josephine Quinn on ancient identity and the non-existence of Phoenician “ethnicity.”
Summer school applications open for the Katz Center’s graduate student seminar on the supernatural in Jewish history and culture.
Video online of all sessions at the recent Christian Africa/Medieval Africa, 300-1600CE conference at Harvard’s Hutchins Center.
Meredith Warren tackles the festive matter of animals inserted into the birth narrative of Jesus.
Excellent open access journal issue on comparative approaches to religious communities in late ancient Eurasia.
Elizabeth Wueste examines risks and possibilities of big data computational approaches to ancient texts.
Exciting news! Our first #scroll from #HebrewProject Phase 2 has published Or 10133 Samaritan Torah scroll fragment. Dated 1400-1499. #digitisation #Judaism https://t.co/fn6sRK1zuw pic.twitter.com/57J48Zv2eE
— BL Hebrew Project (@BL_HebrewMSS) 21 December 2017
Ah job rejection email, fun...But silver lining: notifying unsuccessful applicants in a way that validates their app is a courteous & important thing #AcademicTwitter
— Matthew Chalmers (@Matt_J_Chalmers) 19 December 2017
Packed room for #ajs17 panel on “Turning Points in the Study of Jews in Antiquity” (1st speaker, Daniel Boyarin on Ioudaismos) @jewish_studies pic.twitter.com/tQhIDFYUc0
— Annette Yoshiko Reed (@AnnetteYReed) 18 December 2017