I just received this, um, rather astonishing email from Charlie Haws, Manager of Programs at the SBL. Please tell me it’s spam:
Dear Prof. Boer:
Even though so near to the meeting, I am writing you about the title of your paper in the Prophetic Texts and Their Ancient Contexts session S20-330. It is the first Annual Meeting presentation to use the word “sausage,” to my knowledge, and indeed a little controversially. I appreciate the gendered paronomasia in the first portion of the sentence, but it has come to my attention that the second part of the sentence is offensive to some. To be clear, it is only the last phrase “sausage-fest” that has been taken as gratuitous. Would you consider revising the title to something like “Too Many Prophetic Dicks at the Writing Desk” or “Too Many Dicks at the Prophetic Writing Desk”?
Thanks for your cordial response, Prof. Boer. I am not interested in adjudicating legitimate and illegitimate titles, only in cultivating an atmosphere of collegiality and respect at the meeting.
Respectfully,
Charlie
23 October, 2010 at 8:38 am
OK … now what shall we do? I’m in – anarchy, sabotage? Massive walkout, protest. The SBL is the septic tank for blithering loonies, blinking losers, brainless lethargics.
23 October, 2010 at 8:50 am
Maybe we should make a T-shirt with a sausage and then a red circle and line through it and hand them out to people at the session.
23 October, 2010 at 10:16 am
and a sausage sizzle for dicks
23 October, 2010 at 10:18 am
a sausage or a schlong on the T shirt?
23 October, 2010 at 9:09 am
So dicks are in and sausages out, eh? Well what will you do with your sausage now!?
That is truly an awesome e-mail.
23 October, 2010 at 9:24 am
Fucked if I know. Wait until he sees or hears the paper.
23 October, 2010 at 9:13 am
Okay, I had to laugh out loud literally at this one. This post made my day.
I hope they were not serious.
23 October, 2010 at 9:14 am
Boisvert tells a similar story in the following paper where Pilgrim Press tried to get him to dilute certain words:
Boisvert, D. (2006). Talking dirty about the saints: Storytelling and the politics of desire. Theology & Sexuality, 12(2), 165-180.
The trick appears to be finding others words that are naughtier still, but which go over the editors’ heads.
23 October, 2010 at 9:26 am
As in ‘schlong’. No, I know, ‘weiner’ – how to organise a prophetic weiner.
23 October, 2010 at 9:19 am
[...] Stalin’s Moustache [...]
23 October, 2010 at 9:43 am
Ok now this is hilarious and makes me wonder what other words are on the “naughty list.” I find sausage to be witty and enjoyable pun in the title. Dick to me is much more problematic
23 October, 2010 at 7:35 pm
We could start here: http://www.gregology.net/Reference/Dicktionary
23 October, 2010 at 10:00 am
You need to print this email out and frame it!
23 October, 2010 at 10:20 am
do you know if Roland has a gallery for all his delectable rejection and review correspondence now? He must pay a fortune for framing – DIY driftwood is the best way to go…
23 October, 2010 at 12:29 pm
that is a great idea for a book for Roland actually! i reckon it would resonate with a lot of people.
23 October, 2010 at 12:34 pm
actually I think Roland himself came up with that idea in a previous post – it’s as well to remind him of it though
25 October, 2010 at 10:08 pm
How about getting a bunch of rejection letters and publishing them with the author’s name removed, and let the reader guess whether the essay was written by:
(A) Roland Boer
(B) Heerak Christian Kim
(C) Alasdair Maclagan
23 October, 2010 at 10:10 am
They literally want you to cut out your sausage, just because it someone saw it and felt uncollegial. It’s bold. Perhaps you could suggest that sometimes, collegiality takes time and proximity to develop.
23 October, 2010 at 7:37 pm
Ah, you raise an important point: what type of collegiality does he mean?
23 October, 2010 at 10:51 am
it’s sad that so few have any inkling of church history. are all really deficit in knowledge of the fact that the reform in zurich kicked off when froschauer and his workers ate sausage at lent? sausage eating is a grand and revolutionary tradition for those of the reformed faith (the only true faith).
does all this mean that reformed people aren’t welcome at sbl?
23 October, 2010 at 11:14 am
absolutely dead right Jim.
23 October, 2010 at 7:39 pm
A few years back my request to invite Negri to SBL was turned down since, according to the message I received, Negri is a ‘convicted terrorist’ – so the SBL did not want to get on the Homeland Security Watchlist. If we turn up eating sausages, will the SBL have simialr qualms?
23 October, 2010 at 12:13 pm
They are okay with “dick” but not with “sausage-fest”?! I want to say, “My mouth fell open” – or “I was gob-smacked” but I am worried I will offend someone …
You will have to put on a “sausage-sizzle” – to riase money for SBL! (Do they have them in America or are they too offensive?!)
23 October, 2010 at 12:30 pm
That’s funny you should say that Gillian – I suggested a sausage sizzle above and as I wrote it I wondered if americans even know what they are – ie invented by charities and church fairs for fundraising purposes to stink out the doorways of The Warehouse stores … so I looked it up in the Urban Dictionary and this seemed to be the predominant meaning: “A party, gathering, meeting or soire` that is predominantly male; 2)A situation in which males outnumber females greatly, literally too many penises in one room and thus a sausage sizzle” as well as “a nude beach for males”
So I reckon them americans would be mighty offended
23 October, 2010 at 7:41 pm
I have thought of two possible subtitles: ‘How to Organise a Prophetic Sausage Sizzle’ or ‘How to Analyse a Prophetic Diktionary’.
23 October, 2010 at 2:15 pm
You know what would be great, if you sat down in a chair, in the middle of the room during the session, and just start randomly shouting penis! louder and louder. That’ll show them collegiality.
23 October, 2010 at 2:22 pm
[...] amusing story from Ronald Boer – apparently his paper (“Too Many Dicks on the Threshing Floor, or, How [...]
23 October, 2010 at 5:17 pm
Charlie is trying to be helpful, but he should be very careful; this sort of attempt at “cleansing” papers can only hurt the SBL. If the steering group of the session has allowed the title, Charlie should keep quiet about it, not least because many people will find lots of other SBL paper titles “gratuitously” offensive, either in their use of swear words (“gender-fuck” anyone?) or their ideology (look at the heat raised by the Hendel discussion). There are lots of sensitive folk out there, and the definition of what is “gratuitous” is very much in the eyes of the beholder.
In your place, Roland, I would be asking the seminar chairs what they think about this, and if they turn out to be spineless and back Charlie up (having prevously accepted the title), I’d consider pulling the paper and going public big-time on this fumbling attempt at censorship.
I don’t believe it is for anyone not involved in the session to suggest altering your title, or that the reason put forward is valid. This is the thin end of the wedge (or sausage!), and it should be fought/cut off.
23 October, 2010 at 5:50 pm
Dear Charlie,
You may or may not be aware that Roland Boer has posted news of your attempt to change his paper title on the grounds that some have (will?) find it gratuitously offensive (http://stalinsmoustache.wordpress.com/2010/10/23/sbl-censorship-sausage-fests-are-unacceptable/).
I do not know if you have done this on your own or under pressure from others, Charlie, but can I strongly suggest to you that this is a very, very bad idea, and one which you should drop immediately. What counts as “gratuitous” is something totally in the eyes of the beholder. The Hendel discussion should have alerted you to the fact that swearing and sexual content are not the only elements that many SBL members find gratuitous. Let me assure you that I have found many SBL paper titles gratuitously offensive in my time, but I have had the good sense to realise that my views on this are different to others. For you to begin policing what is gratuitous in this way is the thin end of the wedge, and will inevitably open you up to charges of censorship. Only ruin lies down this road. Please don’t go down it.
It seems to me that it is not for anyone other than the chairs of a session to suggest changes to papers within that session. If the chairs accept the paper, then it is their judgement that it is okay and that should stand; they are the ones who will then have to answer for what they have done, and not the SBL as a whole. The audience can either vote with their feet, or offer academic responses which highlight whatever gratuitousness, if any, is present. Roland is well know for being playful, but with a hard edge to what he does. Any who go along know what to expect, and–in fairness to Roland–his title clearly signals his intentions to anyone else who might otherwise foolishly stumble in and be offended. Wouldn’t it be worse to have an innocuous title, and then offend the unwary with its content?
With best wishes,
John
PS I will post this on Roland’s blog page. If you ask me not to post your response, I will abide by that request. But can I suggest you sort this out before it gets out of hand.
23 October, 2010 at 7:42 pm
Wow, so you’ve already sent this. Thanks. Am still pondering my response.
23 October, 2010 at 8:11 pm
[...] all the helpful suggestions following my post last night on SBL censorship of my use of ‘sausage-fest’ in a paper title for a session on the Hebrew prophets – the full title is ‘Too Many [...]
24 October, 2010 at 5:17 am
[...] I ponder my reply to Charlie Haws regarding his effort to censor my SBL paper – which was invited – I have put the full paper on Scribd. Those involved in the SBL [...]
24 October, 2010 at 6:15 am
Well, I got away with “testicle” at the SBL International. Are euphemisms less acceptable than the terms themselves, I wonder? Perhaps you should have used “spermatic spluttering pen(ise)s” in the title.
24 October, 2010 at 8:21 am
I thought I’d leave a few small surprises in the text.
25 October, 2010 at 10:40 pm
[...] The paper, by ballsy Australian biblical scholar Roland Boer, is provocatively entitled “Too Many Dicks at the Writing Desk, or, How to Organise a Prophetic Sausage-Fest.” SBL administrators apparently received complaints from inflamed members who considered the term “Sausage-Fest” to be ”offensive.” Looking to cool a potentially explosive and sticky situation, the Manager of Programs, Charlie Haws sent an email to Boer, with the request that Boer excise his offending sausage. [...]
27 October, 2010 at 1:51 am
[...] have given your rather extraordinary letter much thought, although it did cross my mind at first that it was hoax, a prank pulled by a friend [...]
28 October, 2010 at 2:04 am
[...] other day, in fact very soon after I sent my reply to the original effort to banish the celebration of sausages from SBL, I received the following email message. It comes from the relatively new executive director of [...]
28 October, 2010 at 2:31 am
[...] Writing Desk, or How to Organise a Prophetic Sausage-Fest.” Much to his delight, he’s been asked to change the title — and bizarrely, the request is only to change the term [...]
1 November, 2010 at 11:04 am
[...] ahead, I was asked by someone who would probably count as a friend: why I had posted on my blog the initial email message from the director of programs, Charlie Haws, on my blog? Would it not have been better to take up [...]
2 November, 2010 at 3:04 pm
[...] [...]
2 November, 2010 at 5:46 pm
[...] Unlike the SBL, it seems. [...]