Antiquitopia

No...this is not Derrida; it is Michel de Montaigne: Our disputes are about words. I ask what is Nature, Pleasure, a Circle, and Substitution. The question is couched in words, and is answered in the same coin. A stone is a body. But if you press the point: And what is a body? -A substance.- And what is a substance? and so on, you will end by driving the answerer to exhaust his dictionary. One substitutes one word for another that is often less well understood. (Michel de Montaigne, "On Experience," Essays 3.13; trans. J.M Cohen) Words refer only to other words, which refer to other words. Meaning is always deferred, even diminished, and never stable. It is the endless field of signifiers, a signum of a signum of a signum ad infinitum with no res .

I was wandering around Book Culture (formerly Labyrinth) yesterday and happened upon some very surprising book bargains. I go there for their bargains. They have tons of reduced priced books on their staircase and on the tables upstairs. And in the latter place, I found these two books: Carol Newsom, Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice: A Critical Edition , Harvard Semitic Monographs 27 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985). Eileen Schuller, Non-Canonical Psalms from Qumran: A Pseudepigraphical Collection , Harvard Semitic Monographs 28 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986). The Schuller volume was on sale for about $7 and the Newsom for $8. I have been trying to acquire my own copy of Newsom's critical edition of the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice for years, since I use it in my research. I had completely given up and have had the library's volume checked out for about a year and a half...or so. I was under the impression that it was out of print. But both of these volumes are newl...

Let me excuse myself for saying what I often repeat, that I rarely repent, and that my conscience is content with itself, not as the conscience of an angel or a horse, but as the conscience of a man; though always with the addition of this refrain--which is no formal refrain but a true and sincere confession--that I speak as one who questions and does not know, referring the decision purely and simply to common and authorized belief. I do not teach, I relate. (Michel de Montaigne, "On Repentance," Essays 3.2; trans. J.M. Cohen) Sounds like he is using Socrates as his model here as one who claims not to know, and as one who does not teach, but always questions.

John Hobbins has a nice posting on "proleptic metaphor" in Job 28. Take a look . He writes, and maybe this will be a good appetizer: Skilled authors are in fact very good at planting semes early on in a stream of discourse such that, at the appropriate time, they will, retroactively, bear metaphorical fruit.* Be sure to read the asterisk at the bottom! *It is fun, in a statement about metaphor, to use an expression like “planting semes.” I’ve run across people whose wooden view of Scripture makes them break into a sweat when they realize that the Bible contains playful etymologies which, from a linguistic point of view, are false. Sooner or later, when reading the Bible or anything else, it is necessary to “let it be,” to quote the Beatles. As Picasso said, “art is a lie which tells the truth.” The Bible is full of truth, but its authors are as faithful to their subjects as Picasso was to his. Since I am a believer, my response is: praise be to God. Or...to bring in Dante, I...

I will be teaching Shakespeare's King Lear in a few weeks, and I am always looking for ways to show my students how the literature they read was meant to be experienced, whether Aeschylus, Sophocles, or Euripides (Columbia Stages just did a production of Medea ). And Shakespeare is particularly wonderful to see. I saw a nice low-budget production of MacBeth here a couple summers ago. And so I was happy to see a very highly rated production of one of Shakespeare's most controversial plays showing right now in the city-- OTHELLO . It is showing at the Duke at 42nd St. Theatre. If you are in NYC, it is only running through March 7th! So, the rest of this week and next week! For tickets and info, see here . Here is the raving review from the NYTimes : February 24, 2009 THEATER REVIEW | 'OTHELLO' Love Curdled Through a Malevolent Scheme By CHARLES ISHERWOOD The spring theater season this year is enticingly rich, both on Broadway and off. But I suspect it will not brin...

The end of comedy is self-parody, and its wisdom is self-understanding. (Mark van Doren, Shakespeare 67) With this line, Mark van Doren writes about the play within a play, "Pyramus and Thisbe" within A Midsummer Night's Dream . "Pyramus and Thisbe," however, does not really parody A Midsummer Night's Dream so much as it does his slightly earlier play, Romeo and Juliet . Parodying his highly successful early tragedy on love within the hall-of-mirrors comedy, van Doren claims, Shakespeare has reached a new level of self-awareness as a poet, seeing that the whole is greater than the parts. This whole is not just the play itself with the parts being the various characters, the various soliloquies or exchanges and poetic reflections, but the play itself is the part within the whole of plays; one play as a single entity interacting with all other possible plays, latent or actualized, by the poet himself, who is just one part of another greater whole: Never ag...

A kissed mouth doesn't lose its freshness: like the moon it turns up new again. (Boccaccio, Decameron II.7; trans.G.H. McWilliam) Boccaccio quotes this as a traditional proverb, but the Decameron is its first literary attestation. You can guess what it means....

The chair of my department just sent this out to the entire department. It is an article from the NYTimes on grades and student expectations, particularly the increasing sense of entitlement to high grades that students have: February 18, 2009 Student Expectations Seen as Causing Grade Disputes By MAX ROOSEVELT Prof. Marshall Grossman has come to expect complaints whenever he returns graded papers in his English classes at the University of Maryland. “Many students come in with the conviction that they’ve worked hard and deserve a higher mark,” Professor Grossman said. “Some assert that they have never gotten a grade as low as this before.” He attributes those complaints to his students’ sense of entitlement. “I tell my classes that if they just do what they are supposed to do and meet the standard requirements, that they will earn a C,” he said. “That is the default grade. They see the default grade as an A.” A recent study by researchers at the University of California, Irvine, foun...

The Master said, "Unless a man has the spirit of the rites, in being respectful he will wear himself out, in being careful he will become timid, in having courage he will become unruly, and in being forthright he will become intolerant." (Confucius, Analects 8.2a; trans. Lau) It sounds a bit like Paul in 2 Cor. 3:6: "For the letter kills, but the spirit gives life." The hallmark verse, at least for Augustine, for his "spiritual" hermeneutics that he learned from Ambrose (Confessions V.xiv (24)): Above all, I heard first one, then another, then many difficult passages in the Old Testament scriptures figuratively interpreted, wehre I, by taking them literally, had found them to kill. This was while listening to Ambrose's sermons. And then reading on his own: I was also pleased that when the old writings of the Law and the Prophets came before me, they were no longer read with an eye to which they had previously looked absured, when I used to attack yo...

John Hobbins has posted on Van Gogh's faith in the expressionists' oscillations of joy and depression, in which the downs eventually outweighed the ups. Van Gogh is by far my most favorite painter of all time. Here is a quote from Hobbins's post: In 1885 Van Gogh painted this volume in his Still Life with Bible. A crack in the spine still causes the book to fall open at Isaiah 53, precisely the page at which the Bible lies open in the painting. I have posted the "Still Life with Bible" above. And here is Isaiah 53:1-12: Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath bo...

When the Master went inside the Grand Temple, he asked questions about everything. Someone remarked, "Who said the son of the man from Tsou understood the rites? When he went inside the Grand Temple, he asked questions about everything." The Master, on hearing of this, said, "The asking of questions is in itself the correct rite." (Confucius, Analects 3.15; trans. D.C. Lau) So, the next time you go to a church, synagogue, temple, mosque, etc., ask a lot of questions! For this is the correct rite. But why would questioning in itself be the correct rite? Perhaps asking questions is a sign of humility. Indeed, answering is not also named as the correct rite. At the same time, it is the search for understanding (even if ultimately there are no answers). It forces the questioner and the questioned to reflect upon why they do what they do. Such reflection, it seems to me, is too rare.

I thought it would be appropriate to quote some excerpts from the Song of Songs (Song of Solomon) for Valentine's Day. Later interpreters would reread the male and female lovers here as God and Israel (among Jews) or Christ and the Church (Christians), and so forth. But, originally, it is just a raw love song between two lovers in which the female voice predominates: Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine, your anointing oils are fragrant, your name is perfume poured out; therefore the maidens love you. Draw me after you, let us make haste. .... How beautiful you are, my love, how very beautiful! Your eyes are doves behind your veil. Your hair is like a flock of goats, moving down the slopes of Gilead. Your teach are like a flock of shorn ewes that have come up from washing, all of which bear twins, and not one among them is bereaved. Your lips are like a crimson thread, and your mouth is lovely. Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranat...

Since today is both Darwin's and Lincoln's 200th birthday, both born Feb. 12, 1809, I think I should balance out my quotes of the day. The earlier was a beautiful passage from Darwin's Origin of Species, and here Lincoln's justly famous and comparatively brief Second Inaugural Address: Fellow-Countrymen: AT this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all....

If you didn't see Letterman last night, here is the most awkward and strangest interview ever with, it seems, a highly drugged Joaquin Phoenix. "Joaquin, sorry you couldn't be here tonight." I apologize that the earlier YouTube video was pulled due to copyright issues (thanks, Angie, for pointing this out). Here is a shorter clip directly from CBS:

This excerpt is the very last paragraph to the Origin of Species. It is a well-wrought piece of prose from a literary perspective, and, James McGrath will notice, sees a seemlessness in creation and evolution, at least in its prosody: It is interesting to comtemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth and Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character a...

Today, February 12, is the 200th birthday of two giants of the 19th century: Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. That's right--they were born on the exact same day. There are two recent books that have discussed these two figures together, their similarities within their differences, so to speak. The most recent is just out: Adam Gopnik, Angels and Ages: A Short Book about Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life . Here is its description: On a memorable day in human history, February 12, 1809, two babies were born an ocean apart: Abraham Lincoln in a one-room Kentucky log cabin; Charles Darwin on an English country estate. It was a time of backward-seeming notions, when almost everyone still accepted the biblical account of creation as the literal truth and authoritarianism as the most natural and viable social order. But by the time both men died, the world had changed: ordinary people understood that life on earth was a story of continuous evolution, and the Civil War had proved tha...

The Master said, "If one learns from others but does not think, one will be bewildered. If, on the other hand, one thinks but does not learn from others, one will be in peril." (Confucius, Analects 2.15; trans. D.C. Lau) The point is you must learn, but must apply your learning from others, thereby multiplying knowledge through thinking. It seems, moreover, to be a conjunctive process that oscillates between learning and thinking and back again. By the way, my more regular readership might want to know that the Analects resemble, at least formally, the Gospel of Thomas , in the sense of being a series of sayings that begin with "The Master said..." as Thomas begins each new saying with "Jesus said..." albeit with some variations (some sayings begin with a disciple's statement or question).

Since I am interested in all things related to religion, I thought I would send along this site , which features halal hip-huggers. As the site says: Peace and Blessings Be Upon You. And welcome to Muslim Sex Shop! And among His wonders is this: He creates for you mates out of your own kind, so that you might incline towards them, and He engenders love and tenderness between you: in this, behold, there are messages indeed for people who think! -Qur’an, 30:21 (Muhammad Asad Translation) And: Are you tired of your aunties not talking to you about sex? Are you afraid that your little sister learns about sexuality from Barbie dolls? Married sex-life becoming a bore? Enter Muslim Sex Shop. There is plenty of material on the internet for intimacy, sexuality, and related products. We’ve never come across one for Muslims, and so we decided to create a space for our own. The reality is, Muslims need to access useful, factual information on sexuality and intimacy. Sexual ignorance hurts ...

Per me si va ne la citta dolente, per me si va ne l'etterno dolore, per me si va tra la perduta gente. Giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore; fecemi la divina podestate, la somma sapienza e 'l primo amore. Dinanzi a me non fuor cose create se non etterne, e io etterno duro. Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate. Through me the way into the suffering city, through me the way to the eternal pain, through me the way that runs among the lost. Justice urged on my high artificer; my maker was divine authority, the highest wisdom, and the primal love. Before me nothing but eternal things were made, and I endure eternally. Abandon every hope, who enter here. (Dante, Inferno 3.1-9; trans. Allen Mandelbaum) Maybe I should post this above my classroom door.... ;)

If you study antiquity for any length of time, you'll realize that the ancients had a fascination with serpents. Not just with the cunning serpent in Gen. 3, but throughout all ancient cultures with multiple responses: they were ambivalent creatures, capable of death and rejuvenation at the same time. One might remember in the Epic of Gilgamesh how a serpent stole the plant that gives the power of rejuvenation from Gilgamesh. They were the symbol of Asklepios (Lat. Aesculapius), the god of healing, and, in fact, remain a symbol of medicine to this very day (the serpent around the staff). In fact, if you go to my academic bio page on the right, you'll see me standing next to Asklepios at his great sanctuary in Epidauros. They were symbols of the chthonic gods--the Furies, for example, have serpentine qualities and inhabit the area beneath the Acropolis in Athens. One might notice that Athene often has serpentine imagery. The fringes of her robes in her statues in Athens ...

Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you. And see, you were within and I was in the external world and sought you there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things which you made. You were with me, and I was not with you. The lovely things kept me far from you, though if they did not have their existence in you, they had no existence at all. You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours. (Augustine, Confessions 10.27 (38); trans. Chadwick)

The recently reinstated Holocaust-denying bishop has been asked to recant by the Pope. The Vatican, it seems, is responding to international pressure, especially in the Pope's native Germany, where Chancellor Angela Merkel stated that the Pope's recently stated positions on the Holocaust were not sufficiently clear or just weren't sufficient. The NYTimes reports: February 5, 2009 Vatican Demands Holocaust Denier Publicly Recant By RACHEL DONADIO ROME — Responding to global outrage, especially in Pope Benedict XVI’s native Germany, the Vatican for the first time on Wednesday called on a recently rehabilitated bishop to take back his statements denying the Holocaust. Late last month, the pope revoked the excommunication of four schismatic bishops, including British-born Richard Williamson, who in an interview broadcast last month denied the existence of the Nazi gas chambers. A statement issued on Wednesday by the Vatican Secretariat of State said that Bishop Williamson “mu...

The End is.... HERE . Scary...

Andrei Orlov, a friend of mine from Marquette and scholar of Slavonic Pseudepigrapha, asked me to post the following: The Slavonic Pseudepigrapha Project would like to announce the launch of two new resource pages devoted to 2 (Slavonic) Enoch ( http://www.marquette.edu/maqom/2enoch.html ) and the Apocalypse of Abraham ( http://www.marquette.edu/maqom/apocalypseabraham.html ). The resource pages include original manuscripts, translations, extensive bibliographies, and research articles pertaining to these important apocalyptic works which survived in Slavonic language. The Slavonic Pseudepigrapha Project ( http://www.marquette.edu/maqom/pseudepigrapha.html ) is an electronic resource developed by scholars from the Theology Department at Marquette University (Milwaukee, USA).

I just received my Routledge catalogue for religion . There were numerous interesting books listed, but two caught my eye: Ritual Texts for the Afterlife: Orpheus and the Bacchic Gold Tablets by Fritz Graf and Sarah Iles Johnston. Here is its product description: Fascinating texts written on small gold tablets that were deposited in graves provide a unique source of information about what some Greeks and Romans believed regarding the fate that awaited them after death, and how they could influence it. These texts, dating from the late fifth century BCE to the second century CE, have been part of the scholarly debate on ancient afterlife beliefs since the end of the nineteenth century. Recent finds and analysis of the texts have reshaped our understanding of their purpose and of the perceived afterlife. The tablets belonged to those who had been initiated into the mysteries of Dionysus Bacchius and relied heavily upon myths narrated in poems ascribed to the mythical singer Orpheus. A...

From the profound theologians at Futurama: I thought God's point of having a light touch was actually interesting: "if you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all." No one likes a heavy-handed micro-managing God.

I just saw this in the Times : NYC in legos...or parts of daily NY experience in legos.

It is one of the ironies of Ovid that he gives one of the most moving love songs to the Cyclops, Polyphemus, who in previous literature is presented as rather unskilled in speech. But, being smitten by Galatea, love transforms the Cyclops from a ravening killer to an eloquent love poet. Galatea, however, does not return his love, for she loves another, Acis. Recognizing his own seemingly frightening appearance, Polyphemus says: Don't think me ugly because my body's a bristling thicket of prickly hair. A tree is ugly without any foliage; so is a horse, if a mane doesn't cover his tawny neck; birds are bedecked in plumage, and sheep are clothed in their own wool. Men look well with a beard and a carpet of hair on their chests. I've only one eye on my brow, in the middle, but that is as big as a fair-sized shield. Does it matter? The Sn looks down from the sky on the whole wide world, and he watches it all with a single eye. (Ovid, Metamorphoses 13.845-53) In the lar...

If you haven't seen it, Jim West interviewed NT Wrong at Biblioblogs.com . I nearly fell out of my chair laughing when Wrong was asked: "Do you have any secret hobbies or interests that our readers might find surprising?" I'll leave it to you to discover the hobby. I also liked some of Wrong's discussion of pseudonymity. I had discussed pseudonymity at length in my undergraduate senior thesis on Ben Franklin's female pseudonyms. I hope to publish it in a journal somewhere soon.