I recently managed to acquire some of those iconic early issues of that great journal Semeia. Having been at the editorial board meeting in 2002 when the journal was fatefully axed, and having had a supervisor (Robert Culley) who was on the editorital board in those heady early days of the 1970s, I have been keen to get some hard, physical copies of the early issues.
So what does one find?
Who was the first biblical scholar to take a serious interest in Derrida? Stephen Moore? The Postmodern Bible Collective? No, John Dominic Crossan (Semeia 23 in 1982).
Who, as editor, published up to four pieces in one journal issue? John Dominic Crossan (what’s with the ‘Dominic’ anyway?)
And a simple lesson of scholarship. I have always been fascinated with the look back 40, 50, 100 years in order to find out who was hot then. So who was hot at the time of the early Semeia? Was it Derrida? No, he had to wait almost 10 years. Foucault? Hardly. Jameson? You’ve got to be kidding. It was Erhardt Güttgemanns.
Erhardt who? Exactly. These young lads on the Semeia board got very excited over this guy’s ‘Generative Poetics’, translating his stuff (issue 6) and then devoting issues to his work (#10). Largely forgotten now. And that’s the catch with all this wayward research assessment that goes on, using bibliometrics and other quack medicines. It’s an effort to divine the impossible: who will be read in 50 years time?
11 May, 2011 at 1:38 pm
I too had a supervisor (Robert Polzin) on the board in those early days. He gave me a whole bunch of the early issues when he retired and was cleaning out his shelves. They’re fabulous!
11 May, 2011 at 2:42 pm
Damned Canadians! You’re everywhere.
11 May, 2011 at 4:53 pm
I couldn’t agree more on the attempt to forecast what will last the distance. Your example could be repeated many times, I am sure.
On the Dominic, perhaps this might illuminate that for you. Crossan is on Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000883705647
11 May, 2011 at 5:47 pm
Jesus, save me!
11 May, 2011 at 7:43 pm
I wish Crossan would write something new. Since 2004 (at least) he has simply been repackaging and republishing the same material over and over… sometimes verbatim. It’s decent enough the first time around (counter-imperial readings of the NT and all that) but after the third go (his more recent book with Borg) one starts to wonder how he can advocate for the content in his books will simply making a shit ton of money off of the material and boosting his own brand status.
Just a thought from another damned Canadian (and given that we have just elected a Conservative majority, we really are damned… we would have been damned regardless, but that just makes our damnation more explicit).
11 May, 2011 at 10:18 pm
Or he could just start growing onions and leave the writing for compost.