Senses, Cultures, and Biblical Worlds
Program Unit Type: Section
Accepting Papers? Yes
Call For Papers: We plan to hold two joint sessions in 2017, both of which are open. First: With the Speech and Talk in the Ancient Mediterranean World program unit, we invite proposals for a joint session on The Sense of Speech. This panel explores the relation of speech and sense as expressed in the HB, NT, and other texts in the biblical world, as well as in the reception history of these materials. Paper proposals may address such topics as: what it means to think of speaking as a sense (like seeing, touching, smelling); what other senses are implicated in speaking (hearing, tasting/eating, etc.); the proper role of the mouth or tongue; the connection between disciplined speech and sensory disciplining; the question of sensory disability and the inability to speak; or the portrayal of nonhuman things (e.g., idols) that have no senses but are believed to speak. Second: With the Religious Experience program unit, we invite proposals for a joint session on Synesthesia and Religious Experience. Distinct from multisensory experience, synesthesia describes the perception of sensory blending. We welcome papers that examine physiological or metaphorical synesthesia, especially those that relate sensory blending to embodied cognition and lived bodily experience. Proposals may engage foundational methodological questions, such as: evidence for sensory blending (e.g., texts, art, material remains); the function of synesthesia in accounts of transcendent, esoteric, ecstatic, or revelatory experiences; the inducement, cultivation, or management of synesthesia through religious practices; the relationship between descriptions of sensory blending and the lived experiences of individuals and groups in antiquity. For both panels, the abstract should state the paper's thesis, outline the approach that will be taken, and identify the primary texts and examples to be discussed.
Program Unit Chairs
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