Theorizing Scriptures
Theorizing Scriptures
New Critical Orientations to a Cultural Phenomenon
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.
In Signifying on Scriptures, Wimbush inaugurates a conversation that fills enormous gaps in the study of religious texts and practices, and shifts the field to new dimensions of exploration and new possibilities for critical reflection.
The essays, by some of the best minds in the field, form a volume that is arresting in its vision and dynamically daring-a powerful challenge to scriptural interpretation across and within cultures worldwide.
Preface
Introduction: TEXTureS, Gestures, Power: Orientation to Radical Excavation by Vincent L. Wimbush
Part I. The Phenomenon - and Its Origins
1. Scriptures - Test and Then Some by Catherine Bell
2. Signifying Revelation in Islam by Tazim R. Kassam
3. Scriptures and the Nature of Authority: The Case of the Guru Granth in Sikh Tradition by Gurinder Singh Mann
4. The Dynamics of Scripturalization: The Ancient Near by Hugh R. Page Jr.
5. Known Knowns and Unknown Unknowns: Scriptures and Scriptural Interpretations by R. S. Sugirtharajah
Talking Back
Part II. Settings, Situations, Practices
6. Signifying Scriptures in Confucianism by Yan Shoucheng
7. The Confessions of Nat Turner: Memoir of a Martyr or Testament of a Terrorist? by William L. Andrews
8. Signifying Scriptures from an African Perspective by Oyeronke Olajubu
9. Transforming Identities, De-textualizing Interpretation, and Re-modalizing Representation: Scriptures and Subaltern Subjectivity in India by Sathianathan Clarke
10. Signification as Scripturalization: Communal Memories Among the Miao and in Ancient Jewish Allegorization by Sze-Kar Wan
Talking Back
Part III. Material and Expressive Representations
11. Conjuring Scriptures and Engendering Healing Traditions by Yvonne P. Chireau
12. Visualizing Scriptures by Colleen McDannell
13. Signifying in Nineteenth-Century African American Religious Music by Jacqueline Cogdell Djedje
14. Signifying Proverbs: Menace II Society Erin Runions
15. Scriptures Beyond Script: Some African Diasporic Occasions by Grey Gundaker
16. Texture, Text, and Testament: Reading Sacred Symbols/Signifying Imagery in American Visual Culture by Leslie King-Hammond
Talking Back
Part IV. Psycho-Social-Cultural/Power Needs and Dynamics
17. Differences at Play in the Fields of the Lord by Susan F. Harding
18. American Samson: Biblical Reading and National Origins by Laura E. Donaldson
19. Against Signifying: Pyschological Needs and Natural Evil by Leonard Harris
20. Orality, Memory, and Power: Vedic Scriptures and Brahmanical Hegemony in India by Patrick Olivelle
21. Reading Places/Reading Scriptures by Wesley A. Kort
22. Taniwha and Serpent: A Trans-Tasman Riff by Jo Diamond
23. Scriptures Without Letters, Subversions of Pictography, Signifyin(g) Alphabetical Writing by Jose Rabasa
Talking Back
Part V. Signifying on the Questions
24. In Hoc Signum Vincent: A Midrashist Replies by Burton L. Visotzky
25. Powerful Words: The Social-intellectual Location of the International Signifying Scriptures Project by Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza
26. Racial and Colonial Politics of the Modern Object of Knowledge: Cautionary Notes on "Scripture" by Joseph Parker
27. Who Needs the Subaltern? by Ranu Samantrai
Talking Back
Bibliography
Notes on Contributors
Index
