Hanukkah Gift #4: Pomo "Playing the Texts" series looking for contributors.

"Playing the Texts", a subseries of LHBOTS, is a very unique and bleeding edge series of T&T Clark that dares to examine and tease out the edges of contemporary scholarship. Editor George Aichele, member of the Bible and Culture Collective that put out Yale Press' Postmodern Bible and all-around pomo hermeneut, describes the series as such:

The series is predicated on the assumption that what biblical studies (and indeed the entire scholarly world) is now going through is not so much a paradigm-shift as it is the break-up of a dominant paradigm, that of historical criticism. If Thomas Kuhn is correct, this will eventually lead to a new paradigm; however, what this will be is presently far from clear. I would not attempt to predict what biblical studies will look like 25 years from now. Nonetheless, postmodernism is both more and less than a paradigm-shift. Less, because the postmodern is always-already "present" in the modern (Lyotard, and to a certain extent Jameson). More, because the postmodern also involves a shift in the fabric of civilization itself, a metamorphosis of beliefs and values comparable perhaps to the Renaissance. This shift is unavoidable, and it is already having great impact on scholarship of all sorts.

We are currently on the prowl for scholars who are willing to take on the challenge to "play" with Biblical texts. Media studies, pop culture, literary theory, all of it. Deconstruct, people! Make Lyotard, Baudrillard, Deleuze and all the rest proud! Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing someone take on Neon Genesis Evangelion, actually. The text is the limit here.

Here's who we're looking for: Contributors would be those a) who have new things to say on these topics and b) whose approaches to biblical texts complement or further develop approaches introduced in the Interventions series. Particular attention would be paid to genuinely marginal voices not now being heard in the biblical studies mainstream. This attention would seek out those who explore creative and sometimes risky juxtapositions of texts, or the application of techniques previously untried in biblical studies.

You can find out more info and contact Aichele through his Playing the Texts webpage. RARRRR!

Comments

[Bryan L]

Where did the comic strip come from?

[Burke]

Hi, Bryan.

The comic comes from Dinosaur Comics, written by Ryan North, and a web comic I've enjoyed for many years. You can read more of his work here: http://www.qwantz.com/

I'm going to be lazy and link to the wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur_Comics. Of course, this means that every fact therein is tenuous.

[Bryan L]

Thanks!

[Jeremiah Bailey]

I think it would be interesting to see Video Games addressed, would something like that be within the scope of the project?

[Burke]

Hello, Jeremiah!

You'd have to ask Professor Aichele about that.

[Joel]

It's actually a fan art of qwantz, so while the pictures and layout are by Ryan North, the text is by Brenton Strine.

[virtual laser keyboard]

Dinosaurs were the dominant terrestrial vertebrate animals for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period (about 230 million years ago) until the end of the Cretaceous period (about 65 million years ago), when the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event caused the extinction of most dinosaur species.