Antiquitopia

Next week in my class we will be reading Jane Austen's masterpiece, Pride and Prejudice . In preparation, I came across this site, the Republic of Pemberley , named after Mr. Darcy's estate in P&P. If you go to their shoppe, you will find the true meaning to WWJD: What Would Jane Do? As can be found here .

The University world is often viewed as a meritocracy on all levels, whether faculty advancement or student marks. And while some realize that (in the past) it has been really the wealthiest who tend to go to the most prestigious institutions (just due to the price tag), the trend will become more pronounced with next year's incoming class at universities around the country. Indeed, the cost of university education has been increasing at an alarming rate for a long time now, but the economic crisis will now exacerbate the divide between the haves and have nots in terms of university admissions policies. As the NYTimes reports , universities with shrinking endowments are taking the ability of a student to pay fully in cash into admissions considerations, turning the meritocracy increasingly into a plutocracy. Socio-economic diversity will be reduced, and, since unfortunately so often socio-economic diversity is linked with ethnicity, ethnic diversity is likely to decrease in pri...

In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art. (Susan Sontag, "Against Interpretation") This is to give a conclusion before the premise. Part of the problem for Sontage is the artificial, illusory separation of form and content, especially the privileging of content over form: And it is the defense of art which gives birth to the odd vision by which something we have learend to call "form" is separated off from something we have learned to call "content," and to the well-intentioned move which makes content essential and form accessory. (ibid.) This illusory separation of form and content seems to be an act of violence whereby the critic creates a fissure in the work of art. It is in this violent tearing apart that space is made for interpretation, itself an act that sustains the illusion that makes it possible: ...it is the habit of approaching works of art in order to interpret them that sustains the fancy that there really is such a thing as t...

We are scientific because we lack subtlety. (Roland Barthes, "Pleasure of the Text"; trans. Richard Miller)

...nine times out of ten, the new is only the stereotype of novelty. (Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text ; trans. Richard Miller)

From PhD Comics : Does anyone else have the sense that the scheme is on the verge of collapse?

Translation attains its full meaning in the realization that every evolved language (with the exception of the word of God) can be considered a translation of all the others.... Translation is removal from one language into another through a continuum of transformations. Translation passes through continua of transformation, not abstract areas of identity and similarity. (Walter Benjamin, "On Language as Such and the Language of Man," in Reflections ; trans. Edmund Jephcott)

I have seen this on Stephen Carlson's sidebar for a while now, and finally decided to add it to my own blog: a daily NT passage in Greek. It is just to the right under my info... You can get it for yourself here . A bit 'o Greek a day keeps the doctor away... I wonder if there is something like this for Hebrew? Anyone know?

Ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὃς μάλα πολλὰ πλάγχθη, ἐπεὶ Τροίης ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἔπερσεν: πολλῶν δ’ ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα καὶ νόον ἔγνω, πολλὰ δ’ ὃ γ’ ἐν πόντῳ πάθεν ἄλγεα ὃν κατὰ θυμόν, ἀρνύμενος ἣν τε ψυχὴν καὶ νόστον ἑταίρων. (Odyssey 1.1-5) Πολυμερῶς καὶ πολυτρόπως πάλαι ὁ θεὸς λαλήσας τοῖς πατράσιν ἐν τοῖς προφήταις ἐπ’ ἐσχάτου τῶν ἡμερῶν τούτων ἐλάλησεν ἡμιν ἐν υἱῷ, ὃν ἔθηκεν κληρονόμον πάντων, δι’ οὖ καὶ ἐποίσεν τοὺς αἰῶνας: ὃς ὢν ἀπαύγασμα τῆς δόξης καὶ χαρακτὴρ τῆς ὑποστάσεως αὐτοῦ, φέρων τε τὰ πάντα τῷ ῥήματα τῆς δυνάμεως αὐτοῦ, καθαρισμὸν τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ποιησάμενος «ἐκάθισεν ἐν δεξιᾷ» τῆς μεγαλωσύνης ἐν ὑψηλοῖς, τοσούτῳ κρείττων γενόμενος τῶν ἀγγέλων ὅσῳ διαφορώτερον παρ’ αὐτοὺς κεκληρονόμηκεν ὄνομα. (Hebrews 1:1-4) I thought I would write an essay—in Montaigne’ sense of a try, an experiment, an attempt that is never conclusive but always questioning—by bringing together two texts and just seeing what happens. It is really a midrashic moment, in fact, because I started ...

I wish I knew modern Irish, but, alas, I do not. So, I'll just have to say in English, "Happy St. Patrick's Day." Liam has the Irish here . I'm celebrating by continuing to grade midterms. For your Irish enjoyment, and appropriate for a Bible scholar, here are some images from the Book of Kells: The Book of Kells is one of the most famous manuscripts from the medieval period, and its artistry is justly famous. It dates to approximately 800 CE. The second image, by the way, is from the Gospel of Matthew.

CAUTION: STEPS Work on good prose has three steps: a musical stage when it is composed, an architectonic one when it is built, and a textile one when it is woven. (Walter Benjamin, "One-Way Street," in Reflections ; trans. Edmund Jephcott) So..are you composing, building, or weaving at the moment?

I have been playing around with the new SBL Unicode Greek font. I like the look of it. I just have one problem. I cannot seem to figure out how to use a circumflex and an iota subscript on the same letter! Let's take the phrase in my favorite NT text, Hebrews, from the opening exordium: "through a son" (Heb. 1:2). In the Unicode text using the Polytonic Keyboard (which SBL recommends), I can write ἐν υἱῶ and I can write ἐν υἱῳ, but I cannot get the iota subscript under and the circumflex over the omega at the same time! I looked at the FAQ's and they said that to get two accent or diacritical marks on the same letter, you had to treat them as one...but how do you do that when the iota subscript is the same keystroke as the circumflex? Meaning, in regular keyboard type, the circumflex is the key that in roman script gives you "[" and the iota subscript is the shift plus the same key, giving you "{". I find this rather annoying. By the way, ...

In his magisterial multi-volume commentary on Leviticus (for Anchor Bible), Jacob Milgrom, interacting with the work of Mary Douglas, suggests that the ancient Israelite system of sacrifice was not merely a bunch of scattered practices, but a unified system--a symbolic system. The unifying factor for Milgrom is death-avoidance. In response, Jonathan Klawans has suggested a two-fold organizing principle: imitatio dei and attracting/maintaing the divine presence (itself sort of a throwback to R.E. Clements, God and Temple ). Klawans presents imitatio dei as the organizing principle and maintaining the divine presence as the function of sacrifice. See my fuller discussion here . I actually like Klawans's thesis, and use a lot of his insights in my dissertation. Interestingly enough, however, the idea that the ancient sacrificial cult was a symbolic system did not begin with Mary Douglas, Jacob Milgrom, and Jonathan Klawans, but St. Augustine (and perhaps earlier), who suggests a...

In the New Testament, Jesus's body is the temple (John 2:19-22) and the community is a temple of the Holy Spirit (e.g., 1 Cor. 3:16f), but in Paul's articulation it is not always clear whether it is the individual or the community--some passages tend toward one or the other, but there is enough ambiguity. Augustine responds quite unequivocally which it is: both. Yet he takes the body/temple connection even further: For we are his temple, collectively, and has individuals. For he ocndescends to dwell in the union of all and in each person. He is as great in the individual as he is in the whole body of his worshippers, for he cannot be increased in bulk or diminished by partition. When we lift up our hearts to him, our heart is his altar. We propitiate him by our priest, his only-begotten Son. We sacrifice blood-stained victims to him when we fight for truth "as far as shedding our blood." We burn the sweetest incense for him, when we are in his sight on fire ...

Obama's overturning of Bush-era restrictions on stem-cell research has had an interesting religious response according to AP . The interesting aspect of it is its complexity and ambivalence. Firstly, the divide is largely between killing innocent life and the importance of alleviating suffering (all quotations from AP): The embryonic stem cell research debate is steeped with religious arguments, with some faith traditions convinced the research amounts to killing innocent life, others citing the moral imperative to alleviate suffering, and plenty of religious believers caught somewhere in between. The expected Catholic response of opposition came from Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia: Cardinal Justin Rigali, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities, called Obama's move "a sad victory of politics over science and ethics." "This action is morally wrong because it encourages the destruction of innocent human l...

I became interested in this question in my research into the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice , which consistently refers to heavenly beings as "Gods," rather than merely "Angels." It does refer to "Angels," but they seem to be among the lower rungs of the "Gods"--the "Angels" are "Messengers," the errand-runners. Often this terminology is mistranslated as "Angels" or "Strong Ones" (which is correct in an etymological sense, but then we would have to translate "God" as "Strong One" as well). So, if ancient Jews were comfortable referring to a multitude of divine beings as "Gods," then I guess modern scholars should just face the facts and, when a particular text calls for it, do so as well. I have written far more about this here . Since then, I discovered that it is a title of Jupiter in Virgil's Aeneid (I'll quote this at a later time); it seems to be the title of t...

The NYTimes posted basically what I already knew: the current academic job market is TERRIBLE. Between curtailed budgets, hiring freezes, and retirement-age professors holding on because they've seen their 401K's/pensions/savings shrink significantly, the job openings have dropped significantly. People who would be getting jobs, are staying back in the post-doc programs and, therefore, keeping people just coming out from getting those positions--so there is a trickle-down effect that intensifies the joblessness. March 7, 2009 Doctoral Candidates Anticipate Hard Times By PATRICIA COHEN Chris Pieper began looking for an academic job in sociology about six months ago, sending off about two dozen application packets. The results so far? Two telephone interviews, and no employment offers. “About half of all the rejection letters I’ve received mentioned the poor economy as contributing to their decision,” said Mr. Pieper, 34, who is getting his doctorate from the University of Te...

From the great theologican, Jorge Luis Borges, a new argument...well, by comparison to medieval and early modern thinkers...of God's existence: I close my eyes and see a flock of birds. The vision lasts a second, or perhaps less; I am not sure how many birds I saw. Was the number of birds definite or indefinite? The problem involves the existence of God. If God exists, the number is definite, because God knows how many birds I saw. If God does not exist, the number is indefinite, because no one can have counted. In this case, I saw fewer than ten birds (let us say) and more than one, but did not see nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, or two birds. I saw a number between ten and one, which was not nine, eight, seven, six, five, etc. That integer--not-nine, not-eight, not-seven, not-six, etc.--is inconceivable. Ergo , God exists. (Jorge Luis Borges, "Argumentum Ornithologicum"; trans. Andrew Hurley) Who needs the "ontological argument" when you ...

I was amused by this line from Borges's short story, "The Aleph": ...as a boy, I would be astounded that the letters in a closed book didn't get all scrambled up together overnight... (Jorge Luis Borges, "The Aleph"; trans. Andrew Hurley) Indeed! How did he know that they didn't scramble up overnight and rearrange themselves when he reopened the book? (I would think this is an observation Borges would appreciate!)

Not to find one's way in a city may well be uninteresting and banal. It requires ignorance--nothing more. But to lose oneself in a city--as one loses oneself in a forest--that calls for quite a schooling. Then, signboards and street names, passers-by, roofs, kiosks, or bars must speak to the wanderer like a cracking twig under his feet in the forest, like the startling call of a bittern in the distance, like teh sudden stillness of a clearing with a lily standing erect at the center. Paris taught me this art of straying; it fulfilled a dream that had shown its first traces in the labyrinths on the blotting pages of my school exercise books. (Walter Benjamin, "A Berlin Chronicle" in Reflections ; trans. Edmund Jephcott)

Here are two passages: one from Revelation; the other, the Aeneid . Each depicts a supernal monstrous divine-like being with lots of feathers and eyes all over: And round the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like a flying eagle. And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within.... (Rev. 4:6b-8a; RSV) This depiction is, as is often noted, an adaptation of Ezek. 1:5-14. The difference being that each being in Ezekiel has four faces, one of each animal. Another major difference are the eyes. There is absolutely no real discussion of eyes in Ezekiel's vision as there are for John of Patmos. In fact, the vision in Revelation strongly draws attention to this innovation, mentioning that the beasts around the thro...

Or, as you know him, Dr. Seuss, was born March 2, 1904. I remember him best for Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs 'n Ham and more recently his Horton Hears a Who made into a motion picture, his whirling trisyllabic rhymes, his word pictures that forced you to think outside the box (like...One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish). Of course his illustrations are equally amazing and distinctive. Lesser known, he also worked as a political cartoonist, especially during WWII, which have been collected in Dr. Seuss Goes to War . He died in 1991.

Death mingles and confuses itself with our life throughout. Decay anticipates its time, and even insinuates itself into the course of our growth. (Michel de Montaigne, "On Experience," Essays 3.13; trans. J.M. Cohen) There are perhaps two major themes I have seen arise in most of the works of literature that we have studied this year in my Literature Humanities class. The first is the power, duplicity, and ambiguities of language; the other, death. From the Epic of Gilgamesh , the Iliad , etc., to Montaigne's Essays , Death interweaves itself, or, in Montaigne's terms, insinuates itself throughout my entire fall and spring syllabus, whether in the attempt to overcome it through undying glory ( Iliad ), establishing great works ( Epic of Gilgamesh ; Aeneid ), gaining or failing to gain immortality ( Gilgamesh ; Genesis), or seeking a beatific afterlife ( Divine Comedy ) or, here, through the complacent acceptance of its inevitability. In this more mature vision of ...

The first quote is inspired by the comment in the last post: And those men who think they can lessen and check our disputes by referring us to the actual words of the Bible are deluding themselves, since our mind finds just as wide a field for controverting other men's meanings as for delivering its own. (Michel de Montaigne, "On Experience," Essays 3.13; trans. J.M. Cohen) This is a broad-side attack on the entire early Protestant mentality coined by Luther, sola scriptura . And Montaigne has been proven right--there are just as many readings of the biblical text as there are readers. It leads not to agreement, but to fragmentation. Perhaps that is partly beneficial and partly problematic. The problem in Montaigne's day was at a high pitch, since he lived during the wars of religion. He also gave a nice broadside attack on traditional commentary--commentaries of commentaries of commentaries of a text. There is more trouble in interpreting interpretations than i...