Theorizing Scriptures : new critical orientations to a cultural phenomenon / edited by Vincent L. Wimbush.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Wimbush, Vincent L.

Series:

Signifying (on) Scriptures.

Signifying (on) Scriptures

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sacred books--History and criticism.

Sacred books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (324 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, c2008.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Historically, religious scriptures are defined as holy texts that are considered to be beyond the abilities of the layperson to interpret. Their content is most frequently analyzed by clerics who do not question the underlying political or social implications of the text, but use the writing to convey messages to their congregations about how to live a holy existence. In Western society, moreover, what counts as scripture is generally confined to the Judeo-Christian Bible, leaving the voices of minorities, as well as the holy texts of faiths from Africa and Asia, for example, unheard. In this innovative collection of essays that aims to turn the traditional bible-study definition of scriptures on its head, Vincent L. Wimbush leads an in-depth look at the social, cultural, and racial meanings invested in these texts. Contributors hail from a wide array of academic fields and geographic locations and include such noted academics as Susan Harding, Elisabeth Shüssler Fiorenza, and William L. Andrews. Purposefully transgressing disciplinary boundaries, this ambitious book opens the door to different interpretations and critical orientations, and in doing so, allows an ultimately humanist definition of scriptures to emerge.

Contents:

Introduction: TEXTureS, gestures, power: orientation to radical excavation / Vincent L. Wimbush

Scriptures: text and then some / Catherine Bell

Signifying revelation in Islam / Tazim R. Kassam

Scriptures and the nature of authority: the case of the Guru Granth in Sikh tradition / Gurinder Singh Mann

Dynamics of scripturalization: the ancient Near East / Hugh R. Page Jr.

Known knowns and unknown unknowns: scriptures and scriptural interpretations / R.S. Sugirtharajah

Talking back

Signifying scriptures in Confucianism / Yan Shoucheng

Confessions of Nat Turner: memoir of a martyr or testament of a terrorist? / William L. Andrews

Signifying scriptures from an African perspective / Oyeronke Olajubu

Transforming identities, de-textualizing interpretation, and re-modalizing representation: scriptures and subaltern subjectivity in India / Sathianathan Clarke

Signification as scripturalization: communal memories among the Miao and in ancient Jewish allegorization / Sze-kar Wan

Conjuring scriptures and engendering healing traditions / Yvonne P. Chireau

Visualizing scriptures / Colleen McDannell

Signifying in nineteenth-century African American religious music / Jacqueline Cogdell Djedje

Signifying proverbs: Menace II society / Erin Runions

Scriptures beyond script: some African diasporic occasions / Grey Gundaker

Texture, text, and testament: reading sacred symbols/signifying imagery in American visual culture / Leslie King-Hammond

Differences at play in the fields of the lord / Susan F. Harding

American Samson: biblical reading and national origins / Laura E. Donaldson

Against signifying: psychosocial needs and natural evil / Leonard Harris

Orality, memory, and power: Vedic scriptures and Brahmanical hegemony in India / Patrick Olivelle

Reading places/reading scriptures / Wesley A. Kort

Taniwha and serpent: a trans-Tasman riff / Jo Diamond

Scriptures without letters, subversions of pictography, signifyin(g) alphabetical writing / Jose Rabasa

In Hoc Signum Vincent: a Midrashist replies / Burton L. Visotzky

Powerful words: the social-intellectual location of the international signifying scriptures project / Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza

Racial and colonial politics of the modern object of knowledge: cautionary notes on "scripture" / Joseph Parker

Who needs the subaltern? / Ranu Samantrai

Talking back.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 287-298) and index.

ISBN:

1-281-39729-6

9786611397296

0-8135-4462-9

OCLC:

476163909