Friday, March 1, 2013

SBL proposals

I submitted two paper proposals for this year's SBL. One is for the Biblioblogging group, and is based on the Academic Busking rant below. The other one—based on a seminar paper I wrote several years ago—is for the Pauline Epistles group, and it involves a reading of Galatians 3-4 from a perspective of temporal dualism and Roman adoption law. I had forgotten how good the paper was, and with a little polishing, it could be really impressive.¹

My experience at last year's SBL doesn't make me eager to go again, unless I'm presenting something, but it's in Baltimore this year, so I don't really have an excuse not to. It won't cost much, and if I need to escape, I can always just come home.

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¹     It's odd how many of my best papers (and the longest chapter of my dissertation) deal with Christian sources, considering I market myself as a Hebrew Bible specialist. I mean, in reality, my specialty involves a complex of Post-Exilic-to-pre-Rabbinic-Judaism-plus-early-Christianity that nobody has come up with a good name for. But there aren't a lot of jobs in that field, for that very reason. The traditional division of disciplines is arbitrary and artificial, but persistant. I have been applying for OT/HB positions, because I am more confident of my command of that material across the board. On the NT/EC side, I have decent chops in the historical and literary aspects, and I'm very strong in a few over-specific (usually heterodox) areas, but I feel shaky on the more theological angles. It does make me wonder if, next year, I should go both ways (heh) and apply for NT/EC posts as well. I mean, the worst that can happen is they reject me, and I've had plenty of practice at that.


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