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Clay Burell's Library tagged criticism   View Popular

14 Nov 09

Introduction to New Testament History and Literature — Open Yale Courses

SWEET! An historical approach to Christianity and the New Testament from Yale, following on the heels of Prof. Christine Hayes' fantastic "Introduction to the Hebrew Bible ("Old" Testament). Full semester of courses to download for the iPod.

oyc.yale.edu/...introduction-to-new-testament - Preview

opencourseware christianity bible history criticism

17 Sep 08

nontheistnexus.com - Interview with Steve Wells from the Skeptic's Annotated Bible

Interesting interview with the creator of the wonderful Skeptic's Annotated Bible.

nontheistnexus.com/index.php - Preview

christianity judaism islam atheism religion criticism

  • http://samharris.org/
31 Mar 08

How to Disagree

Good "disagreement heirarchy" to share with students re: commenting and netiquette (and critical thinking).

www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html - Preview

blogging criticism education

29 Dec 07

Burke Lecture: John Shelby Spong

Bishop Spong's video lecture, "The Terrible Texts of the Bible." I'd love to see him converse with Harris, Dawkins, etc.

video.google.com/videoplay - Preview

christianity criticism history humanism religion science spong video

23 Dec 07

Judas Was "Demon" After All, New Gospel Reading Claims

  • Excellent case study of hermeneutics and textual criticism: conflicting interpretations of two phrases create radically conflicting portraits. Other critical schools at play also.
    - cburell on 2007-12-23
23 Nov 07

The literary genre of Acts. 1: Ancient Prologues « Vridar

  • Philology is not dead :)  Nice historical approach to make sense of much nonsensical fundamentalism.
    - cburell on 2007-11-23
15 Jan 07

Jobs, News and Views for All of Higher Education - Inside Higher Ed :: Criticism, Character and Tenure

  • I agree that the optimal “critical character” is rare, and for good reason. First, one has to be not only a critic, with a certain kind of education and professional opportunities, but also an unusually interesting person, one whose responses to the world are consistent, valuable, and meaningful, significant in a larger sense because they seem to proceed from some set of commitments and convictions rooted in human experience. Then, one has to be willing and able to expose oneself to a text, to respond without defensiveness, to be alive to a challenge. And lastly, one has to be able to write in such a way that both adheres to professional decorums and does something more by giving the reader some sense of the experience of coming to grips with an object of great significance and value.
  • But first I want to quote some favorite lines in The Character of Criticism. They appear in a section drawing out, at some length, the parallel between literary criticism and the kinds of responsiveness and responsibility before “The Word” one finds in, say, Saint Augustine.



    “The act of writing a critical text,” as Harpham puts it, “reaches deep into oneself, testing one’s acuity, responsiveness, erudition, and staying power. But critical writing also tests attributes normally considered as moral qualities, including the capacity to suspend one’s own interests and desires and to make of oneself a perfect instrument for registering the truth of The Word.”



    Easier said than done, of course. Harpham goes on to describe the obligations thus imposed on the critic, thereby fashioning a new identity in the process. Here’s a passage in a format suitable to be printed out, clipped, and posted near one’s computer monitor for sober contemplation:



    “One must .... wish to be regarded as a person who can overcome insubordinate impulses, remove clutter and distractions from the field of vision, isolate the main issues, set aside conventional views, persevere through difficulties, set high standards, see beneath appearances, form general propositions from particulars, see particulars within the context of general propositions, make rigorous and valid inferences from concrete evidence, be responsive without being obsessive, take delight without becoming besotted, concentrate without obsession, be suspicious without being withholding, be fair without being equivocal, be responsive to the moment without being indiscriminate in one’s enthusiasms, and so forth.” —Geoffrey Galt Harpham



    That final clause — “and so forth” — is really something. Talk about criticism and crisis! The prospect of adding more to that list of demands is either inspiring or terrifying, I suppose, depending on the state of one’s character....

  • 1 more annotations...
02 Jan 07

The Arabian Nights

  • To my chagrin, after a few months of daily annotation and study of Burton's writings, i realized that the version i'm using begotten online is actually the popular yet abridged version and there exists a unexpurgated version.



    Here's a quote from The New Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th edition (1974-1997), on Sir Richard Burton:




    He also published openly, but privately, an unexpurgated 16-volume
    edition of the Arabian Nights (1885-88), the translation of which was
    so exceptional for its fidelity, masculine vigour, and literary skill
    that it has frightened away all competitors. Moreover, he larded these
    volumes with ethnological footnotes and daring essays on pornography,
    homosexuality, and the sexual education of women. He railed against
    the “immodest modesty,” the cant, and hypocrisy of his era, displaying
    psychological insights that anticipated both Havelock Ellis and
    Sigmund Freud. His Nights were praised by some by for their robustness
    and honesty but attacked by others as “garbage of the brothels,” “an
    appalling collection of degrading customs and statistics of vice.”



    The unexpurgated version is huge, in 16
    volumes, and each volume includes a preface and a dedication, and with
    several pages of annotations. To read them all and understand them all
    is pretty much equivalent to a year of study of Middle East and
    Islamic culture. Yours truely can't be making such undertaking. The
    text you see on this site are the ones i read and annotated before
    discovery of the full version. In the coming months, i will read and
    add tales from the unexpurgated version, with inclusions of some if
    not all Burton's original annotations. The outlook is that any content
    involving sex or offensive to Christians or otherwise moral persons
    will be absolutely included, while, some esoteric stuff related to
    study of Islam and does not contribute to the story or of interest to
    modern readers will be excluded.



    The complete 16 volumes of unexpurgated version can be found at:
    http://www.wollamshram.ca/1001/Vol_1/vol1.htm
    .

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