Ancient Afterlives

This episode is hosted by Katherine Gwyther and Simeon Whiting. Our guest is Dr Charlotte Naylor Davis, who is a scholar of the Bible, of Heavy Metal, of feminism, of social theories and how all these things affect and contribute to our lives. In this episode we discuss a recent chapter that Dr Naylor Davis has written on reading Octavia Butler's view of scripture in "Earthseed" (a religion in her work) and how this intersects with our understanding of the Bible. The reference for this chapter is in the bibliography below. Dr Naylor Davis has a Patreon channel: https://www.patreon.com/MetalBiblicalScholar, Twitter: @NaylorDavis, and is co-organising a conference on "Heavy Metal and Global Premodernity." The call for papers (closing September 15th 2021) can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tZy-UuyFCWYmsZx9svCGD1Qs6NNnMJ4LDekZUjTRmYY/edit. Bibliography: Aichele, George, and Tina Pippin. “Introduction: Why the Fantastic?” Edited by George Aichele and Tina Pippin. Semeia 60 Fantasy and the Bible (1992): 1–6. Boer, Roland. Jameson and Jeroboam. Semeia Series. Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press, 1996. ———. Novel Histories: The Fiction of Biblical Criticism. Playing the Texts 2. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997. Feldt, Laura. The Fantastic in Religious Narrative from Exodus to Elisha. BibleWorld. Sheffield: Equinox, 2012. Lust, Johan. “Ezekiel’s Utopian Expectations.” Flores Florentino: Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Early Jewish Studies in Honour of Florentino García Martínez. Edited by Anthony Hilhorst, Émile Puech, and Eibert Tigchelaar. JSJSup 122. Leiden: Brill, 2007. Miscall, Peter D. “Biblical Narrative and Categories of the Fantastic.” Semeia 60. Fantasy and the Bible (1992): 39–51. Moylan, Tom. Demand the Impossible; Science Fiction and the Utopian Imagination. New York and London: Metheun, 1986. Naylor Davis, Charlotte. “Butler’s Invention of Scripture in Light of Hebrew Wisdom Literature.” In God is Change: Religious Practices and Ideologies in the Works of Octavia Butler. Edited by Aparajita Nanda and Shelby L. Crosby. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2021. Schweitzer, Steven J. Reading Utopia in Chronicles. OTS 442. London and New York: T & T Clark, 2007. ———. “Visions of the Future as Critique of the Present.” Utopia and Dystopia in Prophetic Literature. Edited by Ehud Ben Zvi. Publications of the Finnish Exegetical Society 92. Helsinki; Göttingen: Finnish Exegetical Society; Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006. Suvin, Darko. Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On Poetics and History of a Literary Genre. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1979. Tipton, Brian James. “A Backward Glance for a Queer Utopian Future: Genesis, Climate Change, and Hope as a Hermeneutic.” BibInt28 (2020): 466–94. Uhlenbruch, Frauke. The Nowhere Bible: Utopia, Dystopia, Science Fiction. SBR 4. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015. Zipes, Jack. “The Messianic Power of Fantasy in the Bible.” Edited by George Aichele and Tina Pippin. Semeia 60. Fantasy and the Bible (1992): 7–21. Thanks for listening!

12 Aug 202150min

This episode is hosted by Simeon Whiting and Katherine Gwyther. Our guest is Dr Tupá Guerra's (PhD University of Birmingham, UK), and in this episode we discuss her research on demonology and magic in the Dead Sea Scrolls. She has bachelor’s and Master's degree in History from the University of Brasilia. She is currently head of historical research at the Museu do TCU in Brazil and is also a podcaster, talking about topics related to demonology, antiquity, and magic. You can find her on Twitter @tupaguerra A short bibliography around this topic is below: Alexander, Philip S. “Magic and Magical Texts.” Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 502–504. Bohak, Gideon. Ancient Jewish Magic: A History. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Bohak, Gideon. “Mystical Texts, Magic, and Divination.” T&T Clark Companion to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Edited by George Brooke and Charlotte Hempel. Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2018. Brooke, George. “4Q341: An Exercise for Spelling and for Spells?” Pages 271–82 in Writing and Ancient Near Eastern Society: Papers in Honour of Alan R. Millard. Edited by Piotr Bienkowski, Christopher Mee, and Elizabeth Slater. New York ; London: Bloomsbury, 2005. Falk, Daniel K. “Liturgical Texts.” T&T Clark Companion to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Edited by George Brooke and Charlotte Hempel. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2018. Frankfurter, David. Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic. Brill, 2019. Thanks for listening!

29 Jul 202151min

CONTENT WARNING: Discussions of gendered and sexual violence throughout. This episode is hosted by Katherine Gwyther and Simeon Whiting. In this episode, we discuss Charlotte's recent paper about misogyny, the Hebrew Bible, and environment. Our resulting conversation covers everything from the texts themselves, the connections between women and land, and what this means for our current world and climate crisis. A bibliography of some of the material discussed can be found here: Adams, Carol J. The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory. New York: Continuum, 1990. Anshelm, Jonas, and Martin Hultman. ‘A Green Fatwā? Climate Change as a Threat to the Masculinity of Industrial Modernity’. International Journal for Masculinity Studies 9, no. 2 (2014): 84–96. https://doi.org/10.1080/18902138.2014.908627. Boonprasat Lewis, Nantawan, and Marie M. Fortune, eds. Remembering Conquest: Feminist/Womanist Perspectives on Religion, Colonization, and Sexual Violence. New York, USA: Routledge, 2012. Caputi, Jane. Call Your ‘Mutha’: A Deliberately Dirty-Minded Manifesto for the Earth Mother in the Anthropocene. New York, USA: Oxford University Press, 2020 Connell, R. W., and James W. Messerschmidt. ‘Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept’. Gender and Society 19, no. 6 (2005): 829–59 Erin Marie Konsmo and A.M. Kahealani Pacheco. ‘Violence on the Land, Violence on Our Bodies: Building an Indigenous Response to Environmental Violence’. A Partnership of Women’s Earth Alliance and Native Youth Sexual Health Network, 2016. http://landbodydefense.org/uploads/files/VLVBReportToolkit2016.pdf. Gaard, Greta. ‘Ecofeminism and Native American Cultures: Pushing the Limits of Cultural Imperialism?’ In Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, Nature, 295–314. Philadelphia, USA: Temple University Press, 1993. Gudmarsdottir, Sigridur. ‘Rapes of Earth and Grapes of Wrath: Steinbeck, Ecofeminism and the Metaphor of Rape’. Feminist Theology 18, no. 2 (2010): 206–22. https://doi.org/10.1177/0966735009348665. Lerner, Gerda. The Creation of Patriarchy. New York, USA: Oxford University Press, 1986. Williams, Delores. ‘Sin, Nature, and Black Women’s Bodies’. In Ecofeminism and the Sacred, edited by Carol J. Adams, 24–29. New York, USA: Continuum, 1993. Winter, David G., and Otto Rank. ‘Circulating Metaphors of Sexuality, Aggression, and Power: Otto Rank’s Analysis of “Conquering Cities and ‘Conquering’ Women”’. Political Psychology 31, no. 1 (2010): 1–19. Yee, Gale A. Poor Banished Children of Eve: Women as Evil in the Hebrew Bible. Minneapolis, USA: Fortress Press, 2003. To contact our guest, you can email charlotte.trombin@gmail.com, find her on Twitter @c_trombin or visit her website ctrombin.wordpress.com where readers can have a look at some of her papers and find links to her publications. Thanks for listening!

15 Jul 202145min

This episode is hosted by Simeon Whiting and Katherine Gwyther. In this episode we discussed a forthcoming article with Joseph Scales: “Bathing Jewish, Bathing Greek: Developing an Approach to De-Categorising Hellenism and Judaism.” For more information, please contact us on twitter @AncientAlives or our guest @josephdscales. This episode is marked explicit due to a reference to a particular theoretical lens, which can be found in the bibliography. Works that were referenced during the episode include: Baker, Cynthia. “A ‘Jew’ by Any Other Name?” Journal of Ancient Judaism 2 (2011): 153–180. Bonnie, Rick and Julian Richard. “Building D1 at Magdala Revisited in the Light of Public Fountain Architecture in the Late-Hellenistic East.” Israel Exploration Journal 62 (2012): 71–88. De Luca, Stefano and Anna Lena. “The Mosaic of the Thermal Bath Complex of Magdala Reconsidered: Archaeological Context, Epigraphy and Iconography.” Pages 1–33 in Knowledge and Wisdom: Archaeological and Historical Essays in Honour of Leah Di Segni. Edited by Giovanni C. Bottini, L. Daniel Chrupcała and Joseph Patrich. Milan: Edizioni Terra Santa, 2014. Guest, Deryn. “From Gender Reversal to Genderf*ck: Reading Jael through a Lesbian Lens.” In Bible Trouble: Queer Reading at the Boundaries of Biblical Scholarship. Edited by T. J. Hornsby and K. Stone (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2010), 9–43. Johnson, Mark. The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. Lakoff, George. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. Lena, Anna. “Magdala 2008: Preliminary Report.” HA-ESI125 (2013): http://www.hadashot-esi.org.il/report_detail_eng.aspx?id=5433&mag_id=120. Mroczek, Eva. “The Hegemony of the Biblical in the Study of Second Temple Literature,” Journal of Ancient Judaism 6 (2015): 2–35. Thanks for listening!

30 Jun 202143min