The Qumran Institute at the
Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Groningen is
very pleased to announce the 2020 Dirk Smilde Fellow, Annette Yoshiko Reed.
Thanks to the generous support of the Dirk Smilde Foundation and the Ubbo Emmius
Funds, Professor Reed will be in residence at the Qumran Institute in Winter
2020 in order to work on her project “Judaism, Christianity, and the Forgotten
Past,” and to run the corresponding research seminar.
“Judaism, Christianity, and the Forgotten Past”
The 19th and 20th centuries were
marked by a series of manuscript discoveries–from Oxyrhynchus Papyri to the
Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hammadi codices–that opened up astonishing new
perspectives on the ancient Jewish and Christian past. Since then, much
research has been dedicated to reconstructing fragmentary texts, lost voices,
and forgotten sects and perspectives. Due to the success of this research, it
is now an apt moment to step back and also consider what was forgotten, how,
and why. The more we learn from the Dead Sea Scrolls and other such manuscript
finds, the more we come to realize how much of the literary heritage of Second
Temple Judaism came to be lost to later Jews and Christians. New questions
arise, thus, about the selectivity in the preservation of the Second Temple
past and the place of forgetting in the memory-making of Judaism and
Christianity. This research project is an experiment in reassessing the Second
Temple past and its reception within Judaism, Christianity, and modern
scholarship, with a focus on what was forgotten. Many studies have drawn
on the Dead Sea Scrolls, for instance, to trace histories of interpretation and
reception into Late Antiquity and beyond. But what might these data also tell
us about loss, rupture, overwriting, and erasure? Is it possible to draw upon
theoretical models from the study of collective memory and cultural amnesia
better to understand these dynamics, and in the process, to recover a richer
understanding of the evolving place of the Second Temple past in the contested
identities and intertwined histories of Judaism and Christianity? And how much
such perspectives, in turn, also challenge us to rethink our modern scholarly
narratives about Jewish and Christian antiquity?
The Research Seminar will have as
its backbone a series of lectures by the 2020 Dirk Smilde Professorial Research
Fellow, Annette Yoshiko Reed. These lectures will focus especially on the
Christian memory and forgetting of the Second Temple Jewish past, considering
key moments from antiquity and modernity alike in which what we now know as the
diverse Jewish literary heritage from this period was overwritten, at some
times, and reworked, recast, and recovered, at others, shaping the continued
formation of Christian identities in relation to Judaism.
Topics to be addressed in the
weekly seminars led by participants might include:
- Memory Studies and its power and limits for understanding ancient Judaism and Christianity
- Premodern and/or modern examples of the historiography of Second Temple Judaism (scholarly and otherwise)
- Examples of later Jewish and/or Christian reception of Second Temple texts and traditions (late antique, medieval, modern)
- Test-cases in both continuity and rupture in relation to DSS and later Jewish and/or Christian traditions
- Examples of premodern narratives or reflections about the forgotten past (e.g., lost books)
- Examples of modern scholarly discussions revolutionized by DSS and other MSS discoveries
Annette Yoshiko Reed is presently an associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies and the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University. Her research spans Second Temple Judaism and Late Antiquity, with a special concern for reception-history, so-called “apocrypha” and “pseudepigrapha,” and problems of historiography and identity. Her publications include Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism and Christianity (2005), Jewish-Christianity and the History of Judaism (2018), and Demons, Angels, and Writing in Ancient Judaism (forthcoming).
Announcing the 2020 Dirk Smilde Scholarships
In coordination with Professor Reed’s fellowship, we will select (2) Dirk Smilde Scholarship recipients, junior scholars (PhD or Postdoc level) who will each spend 3 months at the Qumran Institute and participate in the research seminar and the intellectual community of the Institute. Calls for applications will be sent in Fall 2019. Please be on the look out and notify anyone who might be interested in this unique opportunity.
Please direct any inquiries to Jason M. Zurawski (j.m.zurawski(at)rug.nl).
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