Hebrew Bible and Political Theory

Call For Papers: The Hebrew Bible and Political Theory Section is planning three sessions at the Annual Meeting in San Diego. All three sessions will be accepting proposals for papers, though these submissions may be supplemented by invited papers. In keeping with the theme of this year’s Annual Meeting we will be hosting a session dealing with issues of labor and/or migration within the Hebrew Bible. Papers submitted for this section should either use modern theories and models of labor or migration to illuminate relevant texts in the Hebrew Bible and cognate literature, or attempt to discern a theory of labor and/or migration in a given writing or throughout an entire collection of writings in the Hebrew Bible. Special consideration will be given to scholars from fields outside of those commonly associated with biblical scholarship. A second planned session will focus on matters of methodology in using political, sociological, and anthropological theories in the study of ancient societies. As the investigation of ancient societies increasingly imports sociological and anthropological theories into biblical methods, the field has grown. This growth has not been without its problems, however, especially as these theories have been applied in divergent ways and for very different reasons. The papers submitted for this session should reflect on some of the methodological challenges of using modern theories to illuminate the ancient world, either through discussion of a particular text, or by reflecting more broadly on the use of a particular set of theories applied to the Hebrew Bible. A third session will be accepting papers that attempt to gain understanding of the Hebrew Bible and cognate literature by utilizing the theories of political philosophy. This session will give preference to papers that employ theoretical models concerning, for example, notions of nationhood, citizenship, law, class, social hierarchy, economic distribution, modes of leadership, and the like.

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