Tuesday, November 21, 2006
(5:06 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
AAR/SBL Post-Blogging
Everything went very well.I met several people for the first time, including Old Doug Johnson, Travis (once and future lurker), Josh (JD)'s wife Danielle -- along with various celebrities in the field of theology, such as Tom Altizer, Creston Davis (the apparent center of all theological events), Yvonne Sherwood, Dale Martin, Conor Cunningham, and Graham Ward (a true saint among men). I had an opportunity to meet Caputo, but chose instead to run off to the bathroom -- my small bladder will be the death of me in terms of networking. Ultimately, though, hanging out with my peers (including surprise appearances by Adam Robinson and Jeff Snowbarger) was more exciting than meeting the august personages.
The so-called "Weblog panel" was a great success. My rather harsh paper received a rather harsh response from Conor Cunningham -- but both proved to be entertaining for all involved, something of a change of pace after the very intense and rigorous papers from Josh Davis and Dan Barber. Graham Ward's response was wonderfully diplomatic and supportive of the efforts of us young upstarts, and there may be some possibility of future events as a follow-up to this panel. So that was great -- much better than I expected, even. We all stand in Nate's debt for organizing this and for clarifying to the (surprisingly large) audience what our real goals were, and if anything comes of it in the future, we'll stand even more in his debt. (I hope he will accept an ironic but weirdly aggressive paper as my repayment.)
In a funny exchange with Ted about that session, he said that it was a relief that someone actually mentioned Marx in the course of the discussion. I asked, "Who mentioned Marx? I don't remember that." He said: "You did -- you quoted the Communist Manifesto!" I was pretty tired at that point.
My other panel this morning was well-attended and very interesting. Brad Johnson's excellent co-written paper was only enhanced by pervasive references to pornography and the moral valence of coveting one's neighbor's ass in ancient Greece, and Ward Blanton in particular had a fascinating paper in which he related the "Paul trend" to the goals of 19th-century biblical scholarship. I also had the opportunity to awkwardly act as though I had an easy familiarity with Dale Martin, something that helped to spice up a paper (viz., mine) that was sadly lacking in laughs.
The other sessions I attended were the one based around Ted's book on Derrida and Paul (the missed opportunity to meet Caputo) and one on torture -- both were great. In the Q&A of the torture session, I briefly got to discuss 24 with distinguished biblical scholars, a rare treat.
The meeting for student liaisons -- an early morning affair that required me to arrive much earlier than otherwise would've been necessary -- was on some levels uninspiring, but one moment redeemed it. The executive director of the AAR came for part of the meeting to discuss student concerns, one of which was practices in interviews. A variety of inappropriate behaviors were listed -- asking a candidate if they're gay, if they're married, if they have kids, if they go to church, etc., plus things like interviewing after (or during) drinking -- and he assured us that the AAR would try to develop policies that would prevent such things. His exact words were an inspiring clarion call: "We are committed to being appropriate." Apparently, as a result of sitting through that meeting I'll get reimbursed for some of my expenses -- a year from now. They did have a nice continental breakfast, though.
All the other stuff was good, too: receptions, the interviews with candidates for CTS's open New Testament position,the heroic effort to discern precisely how long a man can live on starches alone, etc. So yeah -- I'll probably go again next year.
(Everyone else can share their own experiences in the comments to remedy my radical narcissism.)
