After a couple of days on the train from San Francisco to Boston (California Zephyr etc), I’ve had time to sleep, watch the land go by, and reflect on the blast that has been: the American Academy of Religion / Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting. There were the usual wannabe-stars, who seem to believe that style rather than substance is the key, the usual intellectual flexing, subtle and not-so-subtle putdowns, and the usual debauched scholars for whom the old adage applied: what goes on the road, stays on the road. But for me the highlights were:
A somewhat tipsy Deane Galbraith yelling, ‘We must save the Enlightenment!!’
A deluded Jorunn Økland maintaining her Norwegian exceptionalism.
A smirking and bearded Berlusconi Youth subverting the book display.
A dishevelled Joseph Blenkinsopp who made Lazarus look like a wimp.
A fruity Jorunn Buckley offering insights into the PS’s of letters between slightly kooky spiritualists.
A blunt Erin Runions opining that occasionally she wonders whether she should grow a penis and stop making sense, without realising that a penis is not a necessary prerequisite.
And a gasping conference session, smitten by a reeking elephant dropping.
But a conference is never worthwhile unless you encounter at least one stunningly bad paper and one new idea gained from its polar opposite. The catch here is that these moments vary from person to person, so I leave those options blank, ready to be filled in.
The paper that should have been destroyed before it was delivered: …
The rare and precious paper that triggered a new idea: …
(And nominating your own paper for this one is seriously bad form, reflecting an unhealthily high opinion of yourself.)
26 November, 2011 at 4:16 pm
Care to share what the topic of the horrible paper was?
27 November, 2011 at 2:08 pm
It would have to have been Russell McCutcheon’s paper metioned earlier. It was like entering an alternative universe, all of which seemed to make sense but had little connect with the one of the rest of us inhabit.
26 November, 2011 at 4:27 pm
I wish I had known you were in that session for Jorunn’s paper – I would have said hi!
27 November, 2011 at 7:26 am
At least we can say a virtual hello!
27 November, 2011 at 5:10 am
I am now worried about sending you my paper; it could qualify for either one of those two (obviously you’d generally hope for the latter).
27 November, 2011 at 2:08 pm
No worries, John, the first spot has been taken.
27 November, 2011 at 12:39 pm
How about a Hall of Fame version of AAR/SBL highs and lows?
My nomination is John Strugnell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Strugnell), outside the Harvard reception at the New Orleans meeting in the early 1990s, dressed (and smelling) like someone from Skid Row who had wandered into the Marriott or Hyatt or Westin, bouncing from one wall to the other of the hallway, glass in hand with a bottle of his favourite gin in each pocket of his jacket, muttering all manner of imprecations, or was it those chunks of the Dead Sea Scrolls he had committed to memory?
27 November, 2011 at 2:12 pm
An absolute legend! I wonder if we have a photo of the man in action?
28 November, 2011 at 9:19 am
The only photos I could find on the internet show JS with a lugubrious ‘morning after’ expression at:
http://www.basarchive.org/bswb_graphics/BSBA/20/04/BSBA200404112.jpg
http://bibeltemplet.net/Bilder/dss-strugnell.gif
28 November, 2011 at 10:17 am
As you once said about someone a little closer to Nth Carolina: the occasional bottle of wine for breakfast is fine, but for every breakfast …
27 November, 2011 at 8:14 pm
Is that what one would call ‘slightly tipsy’?
28 November, 2011 at 6:30 am
I missed everything and you too, what with losing a bag with a laptop and cash, drinking too much gin, fainting from not eating (I got lost trying to buy fruit) and smashing my face in – I didn’t even get to drink the champagne I brought over for James and Deane (they did). And the unhighlight of the whole affair was the misfortune of meeting BW3. I got into a lift dressed like Adela Collins don’t like, with 12 suited men attached to SBL bags. I said ‘I’m an intruder’ and one commented on my ‘Down under’ and we chatted merrily up the street until he mentioned Durham, and it dawned… I said ‘sorry what’s your name?’ and he told me … and I’m sorry to say I laughed in his face and told him I was the horridible sf. All the way to San Francisco to meet a bewithering, what became bewildering, with his ton of scandalous false accusations against Sheff BibST. So the worst paper I saw was John Dominic Crossan’s whose constant “as a Christian, I…” is a good indication he’s headed for the grave…
28 November, 2011 at 6:47 am
Hope you got your stuff back at least! So JDC gave a shocker …
28 November, 2011 at 7:31 am
Not surprising really – he’s only a leprechaun after all. Is he dead yet? His was more conservative than NT Wright’s, believe it or not, with Tommy’s “Everything wrong with Biblical Studies is because of the Enlightenment”.
Yes thank god, I did. Apparently the taxi driver delivered it to hotel security on Sunday but they didn’t even give it to me til I was on my way to view CTV footage at the airport on Monday (with a smashed face). My mother’s red library book bag, $1000, new netbook, bottle of gin, etc. What a blinking palava. And I didn’t get to see you or meet Ibs.
28 November, 2011 at 7:40 am
Some good news at least, but an AAR/SBL to remember/forget (not quite sure on that one). Can’t say San Francisco does it for me. I know people rave about it, but when you have other US cities to compare, it is probably a bit better. Can’t see much difference though.
28 November, 2011 at 12:01 pm
It’s a bit art deco and less sky scraping but I never wet myself in the (cold) Pacific – how far was it to the blinking beach? I’m just a beach bum and a bush girl. I grew up in the mountains. I don’t do flat cities. The lose me. Even the art museum was artless – wasn’t it Deane. It had one Frida Kahlo and a whole lot of crap. I dodo Dunnatown though.
28 November, 2011 at 12:05 pm
Kahlo was art – everything else was crap. Just in case you thought I was including Kahlo the goddess in anything else but art … those blank canvases and slow motion videos and bits of technology – they lose me too. Artless ‘eartless cities.
28 November, 2011 at 8:17 am
Good champagne, that Mowet stuff.
28 November, 2011 at 10:21 am
Do you recall whom you were embracing?
28 November, 2011 at 10:21 am
As you rallied the sons of light?
28 November, 2011 at 11:57 am
I bring some more over. Introduce Amelia to pwoppa plonk.
28 November, 2011 at 1:06 pm
Jorunn Buckley. I was trying to get you two conversing, because I thought it would be hilarious to watch. Another time, perhaps.
29 November, 2011 at 5:59 am
You were embracing Jorunn? Oh my. Roland – when she was blabbering at the bar to me about this group she wanted to start including me and James C etc, and Deane arrived, and I included him in, she brought your name up. According to Deane…
28 November, 2011 at 8:13 am
I really liked the nuanced approach of the panelists on the African-American biblical hermeneutics panel – looking at a small collection of rabbinic statements about those with “very black” skin and the Hamitic curse texts – the whole discussion examined the texts themselves with a keen awareness of the uncertainty of meaning and contexts and of the contexts of modern readers and scholars with useful interaction with theory on racism and racialisation.
By contrast, Richard Nelson’s paper in the Deuteronomistic History section sucked the life-force out of me.
28 November, 2011 at 10:23 am
Those moments are unique and require long training by the perpetrator: the ability to such all of the air out of a room the moment the speaker’s mouth opens.
28 November, 2011 at 2:11 pm
When in SF, and wanting hills, Janell and I use the BART metro and head for Berkeley, and the wonderful trails in the Berkeley Hills a walking distance from downtown Berkeley. Within downtown SF, a hike up Powell St to Nob Hill offers a small workout for fitness buffs like Stalin’s Moustache.
Looking for warm Californian ocean water is pretty much a lost cause. Those looking for liquidy warmth should take the inexpensive shuttle from SF to the hot springs in the Napa valley. A former colleague of mine, a distinguished Renaissance scholar, who went to the hot springs with his wife, was highly enthusiastic about the arousal properties of the steaming soft mud. My experience of the Napa valley is confined to winery tastings, alas.
29 November, 2011 at 6:48 am
They were sloshing wine around on the train from Los Angeles to San Francisco, so much so that they were completely plastered by dinner time. I’d been asleep after the Pacific Crossing. Steaming soft mud, eh? I wonder if any mud will do.
29 November, 2011 at 6:46 am
Deane, I actually edited my original text in order to be polite, but it did mention the wonderfully fruity JB, among other things.
29 November, 2011 at 6:49 am
Actually, Deane, that’s a good comeback. Seemed to me she was pretty keen on you and the Enlightenment.
29 November, 2011 at 6:51 am
As for former SBL high points, I recall some years ago spending the afternoon in a bar with the formidable Robert Carroll. That’s when I was still drinking. He was due for a keynote that evening, so I asked him how he managed when tanked. It all depends on the piss breaks, he said. If you can time those, you’ve got it made.
1 December, 2011 at 7:02 am
[...] Roland Boer (Stalin’s Moustache) on bowel movements and other conference highlights (1, 2). [...]