Ideological Criticism

Call For Papers: This Section approaches the Bible through critical philosophical perspectives and explores how power shapes and is shaped by the Bible and its reception. We embrace various definitions of ideology and approaches to uncovering the political stakes of the Bible and its uses and influences. For the 2018 meeting in Denver, Ideological Criticism will sponsor four sessions. The first is an open session of papers on ideological criticism in an age of terror. Terrorism continues to frame contemporary events and the study of religion. What are the consequences of this for the Bible and its interpretation? We also invite submissions for two, co-sponsored sessions with the Poverty in the Biblical World section. These will offer critical engagement with the relationship between the Bible and land both in contemporary and historical settings. For the first, open session, possible topics include—but are not limited to—the Discovery Doctrine, Jerusalem, colonialism (ancient and modern), Eusebius’s Onomasticon, and land-administration in Palestine. A second session, also co-sponsored with the Poverty in the Biblical World section, will focus on "The Doctrine of Discovery and the Impoverishment of Native Peoples: Biblical Colonization and Its Present Day Legacies." This session will explore the legacies of the Doctrine of Discovery (including the Papal Bull of 1453 and critical biblical interpretations buttressing territorial colonialization of the Americas and the Indigenous inhabitants of the land). Papers on recent religious rebuttals to the Doctrine of Discovery (e.g., by UMC, TEC, etc.) and the religious nature of the stand-off at Standing Rock are also welcomed. Finally, we will host an invited session on Judaea and Judaism in the early Hellenistic period. The panel will discuss and present significant new research that challenges the conventional tendency to treat the Ptolemaic period as a period of relative continuity in Judaea.

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