Biblical Literature and the Hermeneutics of Trauma

Call For Papers: The topics for 2019 are: (1) Session 1 is an OPEN session devoted to the intersection between masculinity studies and trauma theory. How, for instance, might authors of biblical stories be shaping their understandings of men/manliness in relation to trauma? How do biblical characters who read and/or present as men, even if briefly, react to trauma? We invite papers that analyze the construction of masculinities in biblical narratives that deal with trauma. (2) Session 2 is an invited roundtable that will take advantage of the annual meeting's presence in San Diego to bring together biblical scholars and clinicians from the Moral Injury/Moral Repair Group at Naval Medical Center San Diego to address the questions: What can the study of the Bible (both as a sacred text and as an academic venture) contribute to the study of and work with moral injury? And what can moral injury research contribute to biblical studies? "Moral injury" is the result of the violation of a person's core moral beliefs. Co-sponsored by the SBL's Biblical Literature and the Hermeneutics of Trauma program unit and the AAR's Comparative Approaches to Religion and Violence program unit, the session will feature two clinicians (Navy psychologists, psychiatrists, or chaplains), two Bible scholars (one addressing Hebrew Bible texts, one considering New Testament texts), and a respondent. (3) Session 3, entitled Performance Criticism of Texts of Trauma, is an OPEN session organized jointly with the Program Unit of Performance Criticism of Biblical and other Ancient Texts. Paper submissions are welcomed that inspire the imagination of time, place, and circumstance of traumatic issues such as exile, enslavement, imperial oppression, divine inaction and explore the movement from oral performance to written text to subsequent performance out of the written text. Papers that address the role of the audience or of audience engagement are encouraged.

Program Unit Chairs

Propose a Paper for this Program Unit

Questions About Membership?

• Call 866-727-9955 Toll Free in the US
• Call 404-727-9498 Outside the US
• Fax us at 404-727-2419
• Email us at sblservices@sbl-site.org