Ancient Afterlives discusses research on the ancient world and the importance of these ideas for our modern lives. We talk with researchers about their work and ideas. New episodes released every other Thursday.
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S2E4 - The Ancient Synagogue w/ Dr Tine Rassalle and Dr Rick Bonnie, Part 2 (00:44:19)
In this episode of Ancient Afterlives, Joe Scales discusses all things related to the ancient synagogue with Drs Tine Rassalle and Rick Bonnie. This is part two of a two part interview, and we are going to organise a book giveaway on our Twitter page @AncientAlives for two books related to the synagogue. For more information please head on over to our Twitter page.
Dr Tine Rassalle is an archaeologist, researcher, writer, video gamer, and biblical scholar. Her work concentrates on the intersection of religious material culture and the archaeology of the Ancient Near East, with a focus on ancient Judaism and early Christianity. She received her PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Autumn of 2021. Her thesis examined coin deposits found in synagogues in Late Antique Palestine. This dissertation can be found entirely online at www.ancientsynagoguecoins.com. Tine has spent time working for several academic and non-profit organizations, including the Kinneret Regional Project, ASOR Early Career Scholars Committee, the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies, and the Save Ancient Studies Alliance. She is about to start a new position as the curator for the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience in New Orleans.
Dr Rick Bonnie received his PhD in Archaeology in 2014 from the University of Leuven. He is currently a University Lecturer in Museology in the Department of Cultures at the University of Helsinki, and a founding member of the Centre of Excellence in Ancient Near Eastern Empires. His research interests include museum and heritage ethics, object biographies, decolonisation and provenance issues, museum collection histories, and sensory archaeology. He is currently working on two projects: the first "Making Home Abroad: Understanding Migrant Experiences and Heritage Implementation in Finland," is funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation. The second: "Religious Responses to Climate Change in the Southern Levant," which is funded by a UH 3-year project.
S2E4 - The Ancient Synagogue w/ Dr Tine Rassalle and Dr Rick Bonnie, Part 1 (00:50:32)
In this episode of Ancient Afterlives, Joe Scales discusses all things related to the ancient synagogue with Drs Tine Rassalle and Rick Bonnie. This is part one of a two part interview, and we are going to organise a book giveaway on our Twitter page @AncientAlives for two books related to the synagogue. For more information please head on over to our Twitter page.
Dr Tine Rassalle is an archaeologist, researcher, writer, video gamer, and biblical scholar. Her work concentrates on the intersection of religious material culture and the archaeology of the Ancient Near East, with a focus on ancient Judaism and early Christianity. She received her PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Autumn of 2021. Her thesis examined coin deposits found in synagogues in Late Antique Palestine. This dissertation can be found entirely online at www.ancientsynagoguecoins.com. Tine has spent time working for several academic and non-profit organizations, including the Kinneret Regional Project, ASOR Early Career Scholars Committee, the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies, and the Save Ancient Studies Alliance. She is about to start a new position as the curator for the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience in New Orleans.
Dr Rick Bonnie received his PhD in Archaeology in 2014 from the University of Leuven. He is currently a University Lecturer in Museology in the Department of Cultures at the University of Helsinki, and a founding member of the Centre of Excellence in Ancient Near Eastern Empires. His research interests include museum and heritage ethics, object biographies, decolonisation and provenance issues, museum collection histories, and sensory archaeology. He is currently working on two projects: the first "Making Home Abroad: Understanding Migrant Experiences and Heritage Implementation in Finland," is funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation. The second: "Religious Responses to Climate Change in the Southern Levant," which is funded by a UH 3-year project.
S2E3 - Jesus and Film, Clothing on Screen, Part 2 - Katie Turner (01:07:59)
Part 2 of our interview with Dr Katie Turner (independent researcher).
Dr Turner holds a doctorate in Theology & Religious Studies from King’s College, London. Her research interests include: the clothing and material culture of the New Testament period; and, the reception of the New Testament in art and drama. Most recently, she has published two articles for the T&T Clark Jesus Library entitled, ‘Clothing and Dress in the Time of Jesus’ and ‘Reading Christian Art: An Introduction’. Her monograph, Costuming Christ: Re-Dressing First-Century ‘Jews’ and ‘Christians’ in Passion Dramas is forthcoming with the Library of New Testament Studies. She is an advisor and contributor for Urbs & Polis, a digital hub supporting the study of early Christianity within its Greco-Roman context. She has also acted as a historical consultant for Mattel, Inc. and Rockridge Press.
You can find her on Twitter @DrKatieTurner.
Some good sources:
Turner, Katie. “Clothing and Dress in the Time of Jesus.” in Bloomsbury T&T Clark Jesus Library. London: Bloomsbury, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781350928077.003.
Turner, Katie. “’The Shoe is the Sign!’ Costuming Brian and Dressing the First Century.” In Jesus and Brian: Exploring the Historical Jesus and his Times via Monty Python's Life of Brian, edited by Joan E. Taylor, 221-37. London: T&T Clark, 2015.
Cohen, Shaye D. "Those who say they are Jews and are not: How do you know a Jew in Antiquity when you see one?". In The Beginnings of Jewishness, 25-68. London: University of California Press, Ltd., 1999.
Fine, Steven. "How do you know a Jew when you see one? Reflections on Jewish Costume in the Roman World." In Fashioning Jews: Clothing, Culture, and Commerce, edited by Leonard J. Greenspoon, 19-28. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2013.
Kupfer, Marcia A., ed. The Passion Story: From Visual Representation to Social Drama. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008.
Landis, Deborah. "Scene and Not Heard: The Role of Costume in the Cinematic Storytelling Process." Unpublished PhD, The Royal College of Art, 2003.
Maeder, Edward, ed. Hollywood and History: Costume Design in Film. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1987.
Taylor, Joan E. What Did Jesus Look Like? London: T&T Clark, 2018.
S2E3 - Jesus and Film, Clothing on Screen, Part 1 - Katie Turner (00:50:28)
A return to the Ancient Afterlives feed (and future intermittent releases will be coming) - Part 1 of our interview with Dr Katie Turner (independent researcher). Dr Turner holds a doctorate in Theology & Religious Studies from King’s College, London. Her research interests include: the clothing and material culture of the New Testament period; and, the reception of the New Testament in art and drama. Most recently, she has published two articles for the T&T Clark Jesus Library entitled, ‘Clothing and Dress in the Time of Jesus’ and ‘Reading Christian Art: An Introduction’. Her monograph, Costuming Christ: Re-Dressing First-Century ‘Jews’ and ‘Christians’ in Passion Dramas is forthcoming with the Library of New Testament Studies. She is an advisor and contributor for Urbs & Polis, a digital hub supporting the study of early Christianity within its Greco-Roman context. She has also acted as a historical consultant for Mattel, Inc. and Rockridge Press.
You can find her on Twitter @DrKatieTurner.
Some good sources:
Turner, Katie. “Clothing and Dress in the Time of Jesus.” in Bloomsbury T&T Clark Jesus Library. London: Bloomsbury, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781350928077.003.
Turner, Katie. “’The Shoe is the Sign!’ Costuming Brian and Dressing the First Century.” In Jesus and Brian: Exploring the Historical Jesus and his Times via Monty Python's Life of Brian, edited by Joan E. Taylor, 221-37. London: T&T Clark, 2015.
Cohen, Shaye D. "Those who say they are Jews and are not: How do you know a Jew in Antiquity when you see one?". In The Beginnings of Jewishness, 25-68. London: University of California Press, Ltd., 1999.
Fine, Steven. "How do you know a Jew when you see one? Reflections on Jewish Costume in the Roman World." In Fashioning Jews: Clothing, Culture, and Commerce, edited by Leonard J. Greenspoon, 19-28. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2013.
Kupfer, Marcia A., ed. The Passion Story: From Visual Representation to Social Drama. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008.
Landis, Deborah. "Scene and Not Heard: The Role of Costume in the Cinematic Storytelling Process." Unpublished PhD, The Royal College of Art, 2003.
Maeder, Edward, ed. Hollywood and History: Costume Design in Film. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1987.
Taylor, Joan E. What Did Jesus Look Like? London: T&T Clark, 2018.
End of Season 1 reflections (00:43:19)
In a slight departure from our usual releases, some of the team reflect on the first season of Ancient Afterlives.
S2E2 - Utopian Afterlives, Part 2 - Ryan Turnbull and Katherine Gwyther (00:34:22)
This week's episode is the second half of a discussion with Ryan Turnball and Katherine Gwyther about utopia, its ancient origins and contemporary afterlife, hosted by Joseph Scales.
Ryan Turnball is a PhD student at the University of Birmingham, UK, based in Winnipeg, Canada, researching Christian theologies of place. He is the host of the True North podcast (@truenorththeo) which discusses Canadian political theology.
Katherine Gwyther is in the final year of a PhD in Hebrew Bible at the University of Leeds, UK where she is funded by a school doctoral scholarship. Her PhD project focuses on Exodus 20–23 and reads these chapters by an interdisciplinary engagement with the field of utopian studies. Outside of her PhD research, she is particularly interested in the book of Esther and has published on the themes of hybridity, resistance, and gender within the book.
Bibliography:
Ben Zvi, Ehud, ed. Utopia and Dystopia in Prophetic Literature. Publications of the Finnish Exegetical Society 92. Helsinki: Finnish Exegetical Society; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006.
Bloch, Ernst. The Spirit of Utopia. Translated by Anthony A. Wassar. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2000.
Fitting, Peter. "A Short History of Utopian Studies." Science Fiction Studies 36 (2009): 121–131.
Jameson, Fredric. Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions. London: Verso, 2005.
Levitas, Ruth. The Concept of Utopia. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1990.
Moltmann, Jürgen. Theology of Hope: On the Ground and the Implications of a Christian Eschatology. Translated by James W. Leitch. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993.
Moylan, Tom. “Mission Impossible? Liberation Theology and Utopian Praxis.” Utopian Studies 3 (1991): 20–30.
Sargent, Lyman Tower. Utopianism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Suvin, Darko. Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1979.
S2E2 - Bonus! - Dua Lipa and Hauntology *without songs* (00:08:52)
Some bonus discussion with Katherine Gwyther and Ryan Turnbull about Dua Lip and her album Future Nostalgia (2020).
This episode contains no music from Spotify and is available on other platforms.
S2E2 - Utopian Afterlives, Part 1 - Katherine Gwyther and Ryan Turnbull (00:49:40)
This week's episode is a discussion with Ryan Turnball and Katherine Gwyther about utopia, its ancient origins and contemporary afterlife, hosted by Joseph Scales.
Ryan Turnball is a PhD student at the University of Birmingham, UK, based in Winnipeg, Canada, researching Christian theologies of place. He is the host of the True North podcast (@truenorththeo) which discusses Canadian political theology.
Katherine Gwyther is in the final year of a PhD in Hebrew Bible at the University of Leeds, UK where she is funded by a school doctoral scholarship. Her PhD project focuses on Exodus 20–23 and reads these chapters by an interdisciplinary engagement with the field of utopian studies. Outside of her PhD research, she is particularly interested in the book of Esther and has published on the themes of hybridity, resistance, and gender within the book.
Bibliography:
Ben Zvi, Ehud, ed. Utopia and Dystopia in Prophetic Literature. Publications of the Finnish Exegetical Society 92. Helsinki: Finnish Exegetical Society; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006.
Bloch, Ernst. The Spirit of Utopia. Translated by Anthony A. Wassar. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2000.
Fitting, Peter. "A Short History of Utopian Studies." Science Fiction Studies 36 (2009): 121–131.
Jameson, Fredric. Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions. London: Verso, 2005.
Levitas, Ruth. The Concept of Utopia. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1990.
Moltmann, Jürgen. Theology of Hope: On the Ground and the Implications of a Christian Eschatology. Translated by James W. Leitch. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993.
Moylan, Tom. “Mission Impossible? Liberation Theology and Utopian Praxis.” Utopian Studies 3 (1991): 20–30.
Sargent, Lyman Tower. Utopianism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Suvin, Darko. Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1979.
S2E1 - Jewish and Christian Women in the Ancient Mediterranean - Sara Parks, Shayna Sheinfeld and Meredith Warren (01:26:49)
In this episode we - Joseph Scales and Charlotte Trombin - interview Sara Parks, Shayna Sheinfeld and Meredith Warren about their new book - Jewish and Christian Women in the Ancient Mediterranean. We are so grateful for their time and hope you enjoy the interview.
Sara Parks is Assistant Professor in Biblical Studies (New Testament) at Dublin City University, Ireland. She researches gender in late Second-Temple Judaism and early Christianity. Parks is the author of Gender in the Rhetoric of Jesus: Women in Q (2019).
Shayna Sheinfeld is a Fellow at the Frankel Institute for Judaic Studies, University of Michigan, USA. Her current project examines diversity in Jewish leadership by challenging androcentric ideas of authority in both ancient sources and contemporary scholarship. Sheinfeld recently edited Gender and Second-Temple Judaism (2020).
Meredith J. C. Warren is Senior Lecturer at the University of Sheffield, UK, where she is Director of the Sheffield Institute for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies. Author of Food and Transformation in Ancient Mediterranean Literature (2019), Warren researches shared cultural understandings of eating in ancient narratives.
Bibliography:
Ahmed, Sara. Complaint! Durham: Duke University Press, 2021.
Brooten, Bernadette. Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue: Inscriptional Evidence and Background Issues. Atlanta: Scholars, 2020. (This book is online open access.)
Conway, Colleen. Behold the Man: Jesus and Greco-Roman Masculinity. Oxford: OUP, 2008.
Ehrensperger, Kathy and Shayna Sheinfeld, eds. Gender and Second-Temple Judaism. Lanham: Lexington Fortress, 2020.
Junior, Nyasha. An Introduction to Womanist Biblical Interpretation. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2015.
Kateusz, Ally. Mary and Early Christian Women: Hidden Leadership. London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2019. (This book is online open access.)
Kraemer, Ross Shepard. Women’s Religions in the Greco-Roman World: A Sourcebook. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Lefkowitz, Mary R. and Maureen B. Fant. Women’s Life in Greece and Rome: A Source Book in Translation. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University, 1992.
Parks, Sara. “‘The Brooten Phenomenon’: Moving Women from the Margins in Second Temple and New Testament Scholarship.” The Bible & Critical Theory 15.1 (2019): 46-64.
Schussler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. But She Said: Feminist Practices of Biblical Interpretation. Boston: Beacon, 1992.
Journal for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies 1.2 (2020) The Bible: Transgender and Genderqueer Perspectives
Announcement - End of Season 1 (00:01:48)
We are now on a short hiatus. Season 2 will arrive January 2022. A bonus episode will arrive in the near future where the team has a chat about the experience of recording season 1.
Thanks for listening!
10. Gender and the Biblical World Roundtable - Karina Atudosie, Eleanor Vivian, Charlotte Trombin, Will Moore and Emily Allsopp (01:26:42)
This week's episode, and the last main episode of Season 1, is a special roundtable discussion with various scholars working on aspects related to gender and biblical studies. Our guests include Karina Atudosie, Eleanor Vivian, Charlotte Trombin, Will Moore and Emily Allsopp. The roundtable is hosted by Katherine Gwyther. There is a content warning for this episode as we discuss topics related to sexual violence, rape and still-birth.
Karina recently completed her MA by Research at the University of Birmingham with a thesis looking at hegemonic power in the Song of Songs. She is currently examining how queenship is constructed in the Hebrew Bible. Her twitter handle is @KAtudosie
Ellie is an AHRC-funded PhD Candidate at the University of Birmingham researching the function of metaphor in the representations and conceptualisations of disabled bodies in the Hebrew Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Ellie is also a contributor/team member at the Ancient Afterlives academic podcast.
Charlotte is an SWWDTP (AHRC) funded PhD candidate at Exeter University researching military metaphor usage in global Neo-Muscular Christian men’s groups. Her research interests include biblical violence, feminist hermeneutics, the theology of Veganism, Ecotheology, and the intersection of masculinity, the Bible, and nationalism. Charlotte is an honorary Research Associate at the Centre for the Study of Bible and Violence, and a contributor/team member at the Ancient Afterlives academic podcast.
Will is training for priesthood in the Church of England at Westcott House, Cambridge and his first book, exploring the Bible, toxic masculinity, and the Christian faith, will be published with SCM Press in 2022. He writes broadly in the areas of gender, masculinity, sexuality, and violence, and how they intersect with Christianity and the Bible. You can find him on Twitter @willmoorewill
Emily is studying for a PhD at the University of Edinburgh in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies, researching women’s bodies in the prophetic metaphors. Her research interests include feminist criticism, sexual and maternal imagery, sexual violence, and depictions of pregnancy and birth.
Thanks for listening!
9. Part 2. Dead Sea Scrolls in the Modern Era: Provenance and Forgery - Ingrid Breilid Gimse (00:36:52)
This week is the second of a two-part interview with Ingrid Breilid Gimse, hosted by Katherine Gwyther and Michael DeVries. Ingrid is a theologian doing her PhD at the University of Agder in Norway. She is a research fellow in the research project "The Lying Pen of Scribes: Manuscript Forgeries, Digital Imaging, and Critical Provenance Research." Her PhD project concerns the publication history of the official publication series of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Discoveries in the Judaean Desert (DJD). The Lying Pen project is on Facebook (https://facebook.com/lyingpen) and has a formal web site (https://lyingpen.uia.no) and a more informal blog (https://lyingpen.com). Ingrid's twitter handle is @IngridBreilidG.
Ingrid's article (Gimse, I. B. [2020]. The Post-2002 Fragments' Dependency on Modern Editions of the Hebrew Bible. Revue de Qumran, 32[1]: 115, 57-77) can be found here: https://uia.brage.unit.no/uia-xmlui/handle/11250/2784067
Bibliography:
Dennis Mizzi and Jodi Magness, "Provenance vs. Authenticity: An Archaeological Perspective on the Post-2002 'Dead Sea Scrolls-Like' Fragments," Dead Sea Discoveries 26.2 (2019):135-169 DOI:10.1163/15685179-12341503.
Kipp Davis, Ira Rabin, Ines Feldman, Myriam Krutzsch, Hasia Rimon, Årstein Justnes, Torleif Elgvin, and Michael Langlois, "Nine Dubious 'Dead Sea Scrolls' Fragments from the Twenty-First Century," Dead Sea Discoveries 24 (2017): 189–228.
Kipp Davis, "Caves of Dispute: Patterns of Correspondence and Suspicion in the Post-2002 'Dead Sea Scrolls' Fragments*," Dead Sea Discoveries 24 (2017): 229–270.
Eibert C. J. Tigchelaar, "A Provisional List of Unprovenanced, Twenty-First Century, Dead Sea Scrolls-like Fragments," Dead Sea Discoveries 24 (2017): 173–188.
Stephen A. Reed, "What is a Fragment?," The Journal of Jewish Studies 45 (1994): 123–125.
Stephen A. Reed, "Find-Sites of the Dead Sea Scrolls," Dead Sea Discoveries 14.2 (2007): 199–221.
Gerrie Snyman, “The African and Western Hermeneutics Debate: Mimesis, The Book of Esther, and Textuality,” OTE 25 (2012): 657–684.
Thanks for listening!
9. Part 1. Dead Sea Scrolls in the Modern Era: Provenance and Forgery - Ingrid Breilid Gimse (00:44:07)
This week is the first of a two-part interview with Ingrid Breilid Gimse, hosted by Katherine Gwyther and Michael DeVries. Ingrid is a theologian doing her PhD at the University of Agder in Norway. She is a research fellow in the research project "The Lying Pen of Scribes: Manuscript Forgeries, Digital Imaging, and Critical Provenance Research." Her PhD project concerns the publication history of the official publication series of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Discoveries in the Judaean Desert (DJD). The Lying Pen project is on Facebook (https://facebook.com/lyingpen) and has a formal web site (https://lyingpen.uia.no) and a more informal blog (https://lyingpen.com). Ingrid's twitter handle is @IngridBreilidG.
Ingrid's article (Gimse, I. B. [2020]. The Post-2002 Fragments' Dependency on Modern Editions of the Hebrew Bible. Revue de Qumran, 32[1]: 115, 57-77) can be found here: https://uia.brage.unit.no/uia-xmlui/handle/11250/2784067
Bibliography:
Dennis Mizzi and Jodi Magness, "Provenance vs. Authenticity: An Archaeological Perspective on the Post-2002 'Dead Sea Scrolls-Like' Fragments," Dead Sea Discoveries 26.2 (2019):135-169 DOI:10.1163/15685179-12341503.
Kipp Davis, Ira Rabin, Ines Feldman, Myriam Krutzsch, Hasia Rimon, Årstein Justnes, Torleif Elgvin, and Michael Langlois, "Nine Dubious 'Dead Sea Scrolls' Fragments from the Twenty-First Century," Dead Sea Discoveries 24 (2017): 189–228.
Kipp Davis, "Caves of Dispute: Patterns of Correspondence and Suspicion in the Post-2002 'Dead Sea Scrolls' Fragments*," Dead Sea Discoveries 24 (2017): 229–270.
Eibert C. J. Tigchelaar, "A Provisional List of Unprovenanced, Twenty-First Century, Dead Sea Scrolls-like Fragments," Dead Sea Discoveries 24 (2017): 173–188.
Stephen A. Reed, "What is a Fragment?," The Journal of Jewish Studies 45 (1994): 123–125.
Stephen A. Reed, "Find-Sites of the Dead Sea Scrolls," Dead Sea Discoveries 14.2 (2007): 199–221.
Gerrie Snyman, “The African and Western Hermeneutics Debate: Mimesis, The Book of Esther, and Textuality,” OTE 25 (2012): 657–684.
Thanks for listening!
8. War Scrolls and Trauma [Coffee Chat] - Michael DeVries and Simeon Whiting (00:50:07)
In this week's episode, Simeon Whiting and Michael DeVries talk about their research in this edition of Coffee Chat. We apologise for Mike's audio quality, but we didn't want to lose this fascinating conversation. Simeon has just completed his PhD at the University of Birmingham. His thesis applies trauma theory and collective memory studies to the Reed Sea story. He is interested in trauma, masculinities and how they can shed light on biblical texts, and he has also published work on Exodus commentaries and their curiously narrow views on how the Pentateuch was composed. Alongside his research, Simeon works part-time as a writer, editor and tutor. He likes long-distance running and good coffee. His Twitter handle is: @simeonwhiting
Michael is completing his PhD, also at the University of Birmingham, and an Adjunct Professor at Azusa Pacific University in California. His research is focused on the War Scroll and related material known from the Dead Sea Scrolls. He examines questions of ritual, purification and defilement in these texts. He is a contributor and the co-general editor of the conference proceedings volume Ezra-Nehemiah and the Dead Sea Scrolls (SBL Press, forthcoming) and a contributor to the edited volume Purity in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity: Proceedings from the 10th Schwerte Qumran Meeting (Mohr Siebeck, forthcoming). His Twitter handle is: @mike_devries
Thanks for listening!
6. Thinking Aloud with Feminist Biblical Studies [Coffee Chat] - Katherine Gwyther and Joseph Scales (00:41:11)
This week’s episode of Ancient Afterlives is slightly different! In this episode of coffee chat, Joseph Scales and Katherine Gwyther discuss what they’ve been reading recently. They chat about everything from J. Cheryl Exum’s revised edition of Fragmented Women and being a feminist in biblical studies, to the recent biblical film ‘Mary Magdalene’ (2018) and representing biblical voices accurately.
Katherine Gwyther is a third year PhD student at the University of Leeds. Her research focuses on Exodus and utopia. You can find her on twitter: @katgwyther.
Joseph Scales is an independent scholar. His research is on late Second Temple Judaism. His twitter handle is: @josephdscales
Short bibliography:
Exum, J. Cheryl. Fragmented Women: Feminist (Sub)versions of Biblical Narratives. Second Edition. London: T&T Clark, 2015.
Guest, Deryn. Beyond Feminist Biblical Studies. The Bible in the Modern World 47. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2012.
Svärd, Saana. Women and Power in Neo-Assyrian Palaces. State Archives of Assyria Studies 23. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2015.
5. Unnamed and Uncredited: Anonymous Figures in the Biblical World - Susannah Rees and Ellena Lyell (00:32:42)
This episode is hosted by Joseph Scales and Eleanor Vivian. We discuss the work behind an open call for papers in a special issue of the Journal for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies (JIBS), edited by Susannah Rees and Ellena Lyell. We talk with them about how they organised this issue and the broader themes they seek to engage with in the issue itself.
Susannah Rees is about to go into the third year of her PhD at King’s College London. Her research focuses on cosmetics in the Hebrew Bible and ancient Near East more broadly. You can find her on twitter: @ReesSusy
Dr Ellena Lyell is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Exeter. Her research sits at the intersection of biblical studies, Classics, anthropology, and ancient Near Eastern studies. Her forthcoming monograph analyses the material, cultural and theological significance of colour in the Hebrew Bible. Her twitter handle is: @ellenaclyell
You can find the call for papers for Unnamed and Uncredited: Anonymous Figures in the Biblical World here: https://jibs.group.shef.ac.uk/unnamed-and-uncredited-anonymous-figures-in-the-biblical-world/
Short Bibliography:
Reinhartz, Adele. “Anonymous Women and the Collapse of the Monarchy: A Study in Narrative Technique.” In A Feminist Companion to Samuel and Kings, ed. Athalya Brenner (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994), 43–67.
Meyers, Carol L., Toni Craven, and Ross Shepard Kraemer. Women in Scripture: A Dictionary of Named and Unnamed Women in the Hebrew Bible, the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books, and the New Testament (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000).
Thanks for listening!
4. Speculative Fiction, Religious Texts and Octavia Butler - Charlotte Naylor Davis (00:50:22)
This episode is hosted by Katherine Gwyther and Simeon Whiting. Our guest is Dr Charlotte Naylor Davis, who is a scholar of the Bible, of Heavy Metal, of feminism, of social theories and how all these things affect and contribute to our lives. In this episode we discuss a recent chapter that Dr Naylor Davis has written on reading Octavia Butler's view of scripture in "Earthseed" (a religion in her work) and how this intersects with our understanding of the Bible. The reference for this chapter is in the bibliography below. Dr Naylor Davis has a Patreon channel: https://www.patreon.com/MetalBiblicalScholar, Twitter: @NaylorDavis, and is co-organising a conference on "Heavy Metal and Global Premodernity." The call for papers (closing September 15th 2021) can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tZy-UuyFCWYmsZx9svCGD1Qs6NNnMJ4LDekZUjTRmYY/edit.
Bibliography:
Aichele, George, and Tina Pippin. “Introduction: Why the Fantastic?” Edited by George Aichele and Tina Pippin. Semeia 60 Fantasy and the Bible (1992): 1–6.
Boer, Roland. Jameson and Jeroboam. Semeia Series. Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press, 1996.
———. Novel Histories: The Fiction of Biblical Criticism. Playing the Texts 2. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997.
Feldt, Laura. The Fantastic in Religious Narrative from Exodus to Elisha. BibleWorld. Sheffield: Equinox, 2012.
Lust, Johan. “Ezekiel’s Utopian Expectations.” Flores Florentino: Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Early Jewish Studies in Honour of Florentino García Martínez. Edited by Anthony Hilhorst, Émile Puech, and Eibert Tigchelaar. JSJSup 122. Leiden: Brill, 2007.
Miscall, Peter D. “Biblical Narrative and Categories of the Fantastic.” Semeia 60. Fantasy and the Bible (1992): 39–51.
Moylan, Tom. Demand the Impossible; Science Fiction and the Utopian Imagination. New York and London: Metheun, 1986.
Naylor Davis, Charlotte. “Butler’s Invention of Scripture in Light of Hebrew Wisdom Literature.” In God is Change: Religious Practices and Ideologies in the Works of Octavia Butler. Edited by Aparajita Nanda and Shelby L. Crosby. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2021.
Schweitzer, Steven J. Reading Utopia in Chronicles. OTS 442. London and New York: T & T Clark, 2007.
———. “Visions of the Future as Critique of the Present.” Utopia and Dystopia in Prophetic Literature. Edited by Ehud Ben Zvi. Publications of the Finnish Exegetical Society 92. Helsinki; Göttingen: Finnish Exegetical Society; Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006.
Suvin, Darko. Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On Poetics and History of a Literary Genre. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1979.
Tipton, Brian James. “A Backward Glance for a Queer Utopian Future: Genesis, Climate Change, and Hope as a Hermeneutic.” BibInt28 (2020): 466–94.
Uhlenbruch, Frauke. The Nowhere Bible: Utopia, Dystopia, Science Fiction. SBR 4. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015.
Zipes, Jack. “The Messianic Power of Fantasy in the Bible.” Edited by George Aichele and Tina Pippin. Semeia 60. Fantasy and the Bible (1992): 7–21.
Thanks for listening!
3. Demons, Magic, and the Dead Sea Scrolls - Tupá Guerra (00:51:12)
This episode is hosted by Simeon Whiting and Katherine Gwyther. Our guest is Dr Tupá Guerra's (PhD University of Birmingham, UK), and in this episode we discuss her research on demonology and magic in the Dead Sea Scrolls. She has bachelor’s and Master's degree in History from the University of Brasilia. She is currently head of historical research at the Museu do TCU in Brazil and is also a podcaster, talking about topics related to demonology, antiquity, and magic. You can find her on Twitter @tupaguerra
A short bibliography around this topic is below:
Alexander, Philip S. “Magic and Magical Texts.” Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 502–504.
Bohak, Gideon. Ancient Jewish Magic: A History. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Bohak, Gideon. “Mystical Texts, Magic, and Divination.” T&T Clark Companion to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Edited by George Brooke and Charlotte Hempel. Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2018.
Brooke, George. “4Q341: An Exercise for Spelling and for Spells?” Pages 271–82 in Writing and Ancient Near Eastern Society: Papers in Honour of Alan R. Millard. Edited by Piotr Bienkowski, Christopher Mee, and Elizabeth Slater. New York ; London: Bloomsbury, 2005.
Falk, Daniel K. “Liturgical Texts.” T&T Clark Companion to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Edited by George Brooke and Charlotte Hempel. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2018.
Frankfurter, David. Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic. Brill, 2019.
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2. Misogyny, Bible and Environmental Violence - Charlotte Trombin (00:45:04)
CONTENT WARNING: Discussions of gendered and sexual violence throughout.
This episode is hosted by Katherine Gwyther and Simeon Whiting. In this episode, we discuss Charlotte's recent paper about misogyny, the Hebrew Bible, and environment. Our resulting conversation covers everything from the texts themselves, the connections between women and land, and what this means for our current world and climate crisis.
A bibliography of some of the material discussed can be found here:
Adams, Carol J. The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory. New York: Continuum, 1990.
Anshelm, Jonas, and Martin Hultman. ‘A Green Fatwā? Climate Change as a Threat to the Masculinity of Industrial Modernity’. International Journal for Masculinity Studies 9, no. 2 (2014): 84–96. https://doi.org/10.1080/18902138.2014.908627.
Boonprasat Lewis, Nantawan, and Marie M. Fortune, eds. Remembering Conquest: Feminist/Womanist Perspectives on Religion, Colonization, and Sexual Violence. New York, USA: Routledge, 2012.
Caputi, Jane. Call Your ‘Mutha’: A Deliberately Dirty-Minded Manifesto for the Earth Mother in the Anthropocene. New York, USA: Oxford University Press, 2020
Connell, R. W., and James W. Messerschmidt. ‘Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept’. Gender and Society 19, no. 6 (2005): 829–59
Erin Marie Konsmo and A.M. Kahealani Pacheco. ‘Violence on the Land, Violence on Our Bodies: Building an Indigenous Response to Environmental Violence’. A Partnership of Women’s Earth Alliance and Native Youth Sexual Health Network, 2016. http://landbodydefense.org/uploads/files/VLVBReportToolkit2016.pdf.
Gaard, Greta. ‘Ecofeminism and Native American Cultures: Pushing the Limits of Cultural Imperialism?’ In Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, Nature, 295–314. Philadelphia, USA: Temple University Press, 1993.
Gudmarsdottir, Sigridur. ‘Rapes of Earth and Grapes of Wrath: Steinbeck, Ecofeminism and the Metaphor of Rape’. Feminist Theology 18, no. 2 (2010): 206–22. https://doi.org/10.1177/0966735009348665.
Lerner, Gerda. The Creation of Patriarchy. New York, USA: Oxford University Press, 1986.
Williams, Delores. ‘Sin, Nature, and Black Women’s Bodies’. In Ecofeminism and the Sacred, edited by Carol J. Adams, 24–29. New York, USA: Continuum, 1993.
Winter, David G., and Otto Rank. ‘Circulating Metaphors of Sexuality, Aggression, and Power: Otto Rank’s Analysis of “Conquering Cities and ‘Conquering’ Women”’. Political Psychology 31, no. 1 (2010): 1–19.
Yee, Gale A. Poor Banished Children of Eve: Women as Evil in the Hebrew Bible. Minneapolis, USA: Fortress Press, 2003.
To contact our guest, you can email charlotte.trombin@gmail.com, find her on Twitter @c_trombin or visit her website ctrombin.wordpress.com where readers can have a look at some of her papers and find links to her publications.
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1. Judaism, Hellenism and Bathhouses - Joseph Scales (00:43:22)
This episode is hosted by Simeon Whiting and Katherine Gwyther. In this episode we discussed a forthcoming article with Joseph Scales: “Bathing Jewish, Bathing Greek: Developing an Approach to De-Categorising Hellenism and Judaism.” For more information, please contact us on twitter @AncientAlives or our guest @josephdscales.
This episode is marked explicit due to a reference to a particular theoretical lens, which can be found in the bibliography. Works that were referenced during the episode include:
Baker, Cynthia. “A ‘Jew’ by Any Other Name?” Journal of Ancient Judaism 2 (2011): 153–180.
Bonnie, Rick and Julian Richard. “Building D1 at Magdala Revisited in the Light of Public Fountain Architecture in the Late-Hellenistic East.” Israel Exploration Journal 62 (2012): 71–88.
De Luca, Stefano and Anna Lena. “The Mosaic of the Thermal Bath Complex of Magdala Reconsidered: Archaeological Context, Epigraphy and Iconography.” Pages 1–33 in Knowledge and Wisdom: Archaeological and Historical Essays in Honour of Leah Di Segni. Edited by Giovanni C. Bottini, L. Daniel Chrupcała and Joseph Patrich. Milan: Edizioni Terra Santa, 2014.
Guest, Deryn. “From Gender Reversal to Genderf*ck: Reading Jael through a Lesbian Lens.” In Bible Trouble: Queer Reading at the Boundaries of Biblical Scholarship. Edited by T. J. Hornsby and K. Stone (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2010), 9–43.
Johnson, Mark. The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.
Lakoff, George. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.
Lena, Anna. “Magdala 2008: Preliminary Report.” HA-ESI125 (2013): http://www.hadashot-esi.org.il/report_detail_eng.aspx?id=5433&mag_id=120.
Mroczek, Eva. “The Hegemony of the Biblical in the Study of Second Temple Literature,” Journal of Ancient Judaism 6 (2015): 2–35.
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