Hermeneutic Interventions and Practices of Reading: Between Modernity and Antiquity
Co-sponsored by CBH (Centre for the Study of the Bible in the Humanities), OCHJS (Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies) and the Oxford University – Faculty of Theology and Religion
Is a common reading possible across languages, cultures, and disciplines? Under what terms may texts be compared and shared while acknowledging their differences? Revisiting Hartman and Budick’s 1986 volume Midrash and Literature, this conference will examine the continued relevance of the hermeneutical vocabulary by which we bring texts together, but also consider the possibility of new models and approaches. Bringing together scholars whose work and reading practices move between the ancient and modern, we will address the philological, compositional, and literary implications of a common reading.
Program
Sunday, 01 Dec 2019
Session 1: 11.30–13.30
Chair: Tobias Reinhardt (Corpus Christi)
11.30–12.30
Hindy Najman (Oriel): Hermeneutics as Philology: Reading Practices in Ancient Judaism
12.30–13.30
Yelena Baraz (Princeton): Fragmenting the Tradition, Rethinking intertextuality
Session 2: 14.30–16.30
Chair: Felix Budelmann (Magdalen)
14.30–15.30
Constanze Güthenke (Corpus) and Colin King (Sussex): Why Read Boeckh’s Encyclopaedia Now? Revisiting a 19th Century Programme on Philology
15.30–16.30
Nathan MacDonald (Cambridge): Reading Backwards and Forwards: Revising intertextuality in the Pentateuch and Beyond
Session 3: 17.00–19.00
Chair: Hindy Najman (Oriel)
17.00–18.00
Yael Fisch (Oriel): Dismembered Bible–Rethinking Midrash and Intertextuality
18.00–19.00
Adriana X. Jacobs, (St. Cross): Poetry as Afterlife
Monday, 02 Dec 2019
Session 4: 09.00–10.30
Chair: Adriana X. Jacobs (St. Cross)
09.00–09.30
Rebekah Van Sant-Clark (Theology): Making the Desert Bloom: Between Isaiah and Yehuda Amichai’s Jews in the Land of Israel
09.30–10.00
Alexander McCarron (Oriental Studies): Enoch at Sinai and the Interpretation of Scripture in the Book of the Watchers 1:3b-5
10.00–10.30
Olga Fabrikant-Burke (Cambridge): Historical Nemeses or Exegetical Friends? Scribal Hermeneutics and the Invention of False Prophets of Peace
Session 5: 10.45–13.00
Chair: Scott Scullion (Worcester)
10.45–11.15
Elizabeth Stell (Theology): Interpretations Sought or Received: Dream, Prayer, and Understanding in Early Jewish Texts
11.15–11.45
Hans Decker (Theology): Retelling Proverbs: Narrative as a New Hermeneutical Model
12.00–12.30
Annie Calderbank (Theology): Hellenistic Jewish Hermeneutics and Midrash in the Exagoge of Ezekiel
12.30–13.00
Gal Sela (Haifa): Holy Tapestry: Rav Judah and the Cosmic Hunger
Session 6: 14.00–17.30
Chair: Laura Quick (Worcester)
14.00–15.00
Yosefa Raz (Haifa): A postrophe, Prophetic Weakness, and the Myth of Primordial Orality: Julius Wellhausen on Ezekiel
Chair: Andrea Schatz (KCL)
15.15–16.15
Kirk Wetters (Yale): The Law of the Series and the Crux of Causation: Paul Kammerer’s Anomalies
16.30–17.30
Daniel Weidner (ZfL): Philological knowledge, Historical Experience, Material Hermeneutics. Redescribing Textual Cultures with Szondi
Closing Remarks and Discussion: 17.30–18.30
Chair: Hindy Najman (Oriel)
17.30–18.00
Sanford Budick (Hebrew University Jerusalem, Emeritus)