Just a reminder to everyone that the deadline for MAR-SBL paper proposals is December 5th. I have a great paper title and I am working on the actual conclusion. (Almost kidding.) I will share more in the near future, but I am turning my attention to Esther. What can I say, I have a thing for biblical women.
CALL FOR PAPERS
2013 SBL Mid-Atlantic Regional Meeting
Sheraton Baltimore City Hotel
Proposal Due Date: December 5, 2012
Dear Colleagues,
The Executive Committee for the Mid-Atlantic Region of the Society of Biblical Literature (MAR-SBL) cordially invites you to submit proposals for the 2013 MAR-SBL Meeting. The meeting will be held jointly with the Mid-Atlantic and New England/Maritimes Regions of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) on March 13-15 at the Sheraton Baltimore City Hotel. We are staying in the heart of Baltimore, steps from public transit and only a few blocks from the Inner Harbor.
We are excited to announce that Prof. Barry Gittlin of Towson University will give our plenary address. Formerly President of Baltimore Hebrew University, Prof. Gittlen is Chairman of the Mid-Atlantic Region of the American Schools of Oriental Research, and is now preparing a book of titled The Archaeology of Worship in Biblical Israel. Beverly Gaventa, Helen H. P. Manson Professor of New Testament Literature and Exegesis at Princeton Theological Seminary, will deliver our presidential address.
Please consider offering a paper proposal in any area of biblical studies. Any SBL member may submit a proposal regardless of his or her region.
Proposal Guidelines and Submissions
The proposal should state the paper’s topic and purpose and give some indication as to how the argument will proceed. Provide enough context to show that you are aware of the basic literature in the field and summarize the argument of your presentation. You may submit only one proposal for the MAR-SBL meeting.
To submit a proposal, find the section that you feel best fits your presentation. See the list at the end of this document. Then, email a 150-250 word proposal (250 words maximum) to the section head for the appropriate section. When sending your email, you MUST title the subject line of your email: “2013 MAR-SBL PAPER PROPOSAL” (use all capital letters). Proposals must include your full name, title, institution (or location), email address, and, as available, your phone number, mobile number, and mailing address. Also, it is very important that you indicate any date or time restrictions that you have when you send your proposal. While we try to accommodate all requests, we cannot guarantee that everyone will present during his or her preferred date/time slot. In general, we assume that those submitting proposals will keep March 13-15 open. Proposals are due on MONDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2012, but we encourage you to submit as soon as possible. Proposals that do not conform to these guidelines may be disregarded. You should be notified by the section head regarding the status your proposal by mid-January 2013.
Each section head will determine the time allotted for each paper presentation. Presentations will generally last 20-25 minutes, although presenters are encouraged to set aside a few minutes of this time to allow for questions. Usually, your final paper to be presented should be about 10 double-spaced, single-sided pages. Please do not exceed your allotted time out of respect for your fellow presenters.
Also, we sincerely regret that we cannot supply any audio-visual equipment due to prohibitive rental costs. So please plan accordingly.
Preregistration
Please utilize the AAR (not SBL) website at http://www.aarweb.org/About_AAR/Regions/Mid-Atlantic for registration. You will be notified by e-mail when our online registration is live. Please utilize the AAR website for registration, as it saves paper and helps the region fulfill our national AAR mandate to promote environmentally sustainable gatherings.
Registration Fees
Before January 15:
Students: $65
Non-Students: $80Between January 16–March 1:
Students: $80
Non-Students: $95After March 1st/onsite registration: $100
Your registration includes the following:
· Access to the Wabash workshop on Wednesday evening
· Breakfast on Thursday and Friday mornings
· Thursday Graduate Student Lunch
· Thursday Evening Reception
· Coffee Breaks/Snacks
Hotel Information
Sheraton Baltimore City Center
101 West Fayette Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
Phone: 410-752-1100
Fax: 410-385-6865The Sheraton Baltimore City Center offers online hotel room registration here. The discounted hotel rate of $129 will be applied if you make your reservation online. Please note, all online reservations must be made by February 12, 2013. A limited number of discounted rooms have been reserved, so we strongly encourage you to reserve rooms early.
Alternatively you may call the Sheraton at 410-752-1100 to reserve rooms. Please indicate that you are attending our conference so that you can receive the conference rate. Discounted hotel rooms ($129) will be held until February 12, 2013.
Sustainability
As part of the Society of Biblical Literature’s commitment to host environmentally-sustainable meetings, we are asking participants to consider bringing reusable beverage containers and name badge holders from previous conferences in order to cut down on waste at the conference.
SBL Conference Awards
MAR-SBL will confer the Howard Clark Kee Award of $100 for the best student paper by an SBL student from the region. We will also participate in the SBL Regional Scholars Program, sponsored by the society-wide conference of Regional Coordinators. Our region’s nominee for this honor will receive a $100 prize upfront, in addition to whatever awards and recognition she or he may receive in the society-wide program. To qualify for the SBL Regional Scholars Program scholars should be at least ABD and no more than four years past the receipt of their Ph.D. Women and underrepresented minorities are encouraged to apply. Those interested in either of these prizes should copy their full paper to Robert Miller (millerb@cua.edu) when submitting a proposal to the appropriate section head by December 5, 2012. Please clearly indicate: (1) for which prize or prizes you would like to be considered and (2) your exact student status (Kee Award) and/or your exact status between ABD and when you received your Ph.D. (Regional Scholars Program).
Wabash Consultants Workshop on Designing the Introductory Course
MAR-SBL members in all stages of education are invited and encouraged to attend a Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion workshop on Wednesday evening, March 13. This workshop is specially designed to assist with the creation and design of introductory courses in theology, biblical and religious studies, and related fields. Wabash consultants will present strategies for designing learning aims and course goals, crafting assessments, and relating the introductory course to institution-specific demands. The cost of the workshop and dinner are already included in the conference fee. Please indicate your plans to attend in your conference registration.
List of Sections with Section Head Email
This year we have decided to go with broad section headings rather than sections determined by the books of the Bible. Proposals in the first two sections need only be broadly related to OT or NT, and Dead Sea scrolls and other Second Temple Jewish writings that don’t necessarily fit the canonical division would of course be considered.
Old Testament /Hebrew Bible (3 sessions)
David Lamb, Biblical Theological Seminary, dlamb@biblical.edu and Mark Leuchter, Temple University,mark.leuchter@temple.edu
New Testament (3 sessions)
Robert Seesengood, Albright College, rseesengood@alb.edu and Kim Paffenroth, Iona College, kimpaffenroth@msn.com
Biblical Reception History
Leong Seow, Princeton Theological Seminary, leong.seow@ptsem.edu
Papers focusing on the reception of a particular corpus of the Bible are welcome, as are essays on method more generally and on the historical, political and cultural aspects of the reception of biblical texts. The aim is to answer some of the following questions, either by example or programmatically: What is reception history? When does this “reception” begin? How might reception history challenge or support traditional historical-critical investigations of biblical literature? One session will be devoted to invited papers, and two sessions will be open.
Archaeology and Ancient World
Peter Feinman, Institute of History, Archaeology, and Education, feinmanp@ihare.org
Three sessions:
1. Archaeological Excavations. According to Albright, “Biblical archaeology is a much wider term than Palestinian archaeology, though Palestine itself is of course central, and is rightly regarded as peculiarly the land of the Bible. But Biblical archaeology covers all the lands mentioned in the Bible, and thus is coextensive with the cradle of civilization. This region extends from western Mediterranean to India, and from southern Russia to Ethiopia and the Indian Ocean. Excavations in every part of this extensive area throw some light, directly or indirectly on the Bible (New Horizons in Biblical Research, [London: Oxford University Press, 1966], 1). This session is open to excavation reports from any area and time as defined by Albright that shed light on understanding the world of the Bible.
2. Tribes of the Testament. The aim of this section is to understand how the individual tribes of the Hebrew Bible became part of the biblical tradition of Israel. Sessions each year will focus on an individual tribe or related tribes, eventually covering all the tribes and possibly some clans. The format of the sessions will be to use a significant idea or proposal by a scholar or scholars in the field as a starting point for discussion. The sessions are intended to bring together scholars with different areas of expertise and perspectives in the hope of developing a fuller narrative history for these peoples. This year’s “tribe” is: GAD! REUBEN, MOAB, AND THE HEBREW BIBLE. The purpose of this session is to consider how to integrate the archaeological record of the Transjordan and the text of the Hebrew Bible into a single narrative story. The following comments will serve as the starting point for the discussion on this subject: “Virtually all of the Moabite place-names mentioned in the Hebrew Bible pertain to the region north of the Arnon. When places south of the Arnon are mentioned, the clues provided as to their locations are exceedingly vague” (J. Maxwell Miller, 1988); “That these events [Deut.27:2-8] took place according to these traditions precisely in the heart of Reuben is often forgotten since the geographical terms `land of Moab,’ `steppes of Moab,’ or `valley in the land of Moab opposite Bet Peor,’ appropriate after Moab had long moved north and occupied Reuben, are used in Deuteronomy. What is astonishing is that the Levitic priests who cherished these traditions – the priestly house tracing its lineage to Moses in our view – attributed their traditions (by way of the old shrine of Shechem) to the valley of Moses in Reuben” (Frank Moore Cross, Jr., 1988).
3. Israel and Canaan: The Search for Historical Canaan – Dedicated to Anson Rainey. At the ASOR conference in 1999, Anson Rainey and Peter Feinman co-presided in a two-session program on Israel and Canaan with Rainey speaking in the first session on the search for historical Canaan, a topic which he pursued for a number of years. This session is dedicated to his memory and encourages those who continue the search for historical Canaan to contribute.
If you are unsure which section best fits your proposal, you may contact our regional coordinator, Robert Miller (millerb@cua.edu). Priority will be given, however, to proposals that best fit with the sections listed above. You may also direct general inquires about the meeting to Robert Miller. All other inquires regarding your proposal should be sent to the appropriate section head.
Regards,
Robert Miller
Mid-Atlantic Region SBL Regional Coordinator
