Emotions and the Biblical World

Programme

The last few decades have witnessed a growing interest in the study of emotions among scholars of antiquity, reflecting a more general interest among scholars of various disciplines in how different societies throughout the centuries have conceptualised and represented emotions. The Emotions and the Biblical World research group explores the role that emotions play in biblical writings, and in Early Judaism and Early Christianity more generally. This includes but is not limited to patterns of articulating emotions, their significance in worship and broadly understood religious experience, the role of emotions in strategies of persuasion, the vocabulary used to describe emotions and their manifestations, translating emotions discourse, as well as the social and cultural factors that influence their expression, suppression or repression, with a particular focus on the relationship between emotions and gender, and between emotions and the construction of otherness. The literary corpora that we consider are not limited to the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, but include also other Early Jewish and Early Christian writings.

Current Term:

2019-2024

Chairs

Françoise Mirguet
Arizona State University

Member Area

Sofia 2024 Call for Papers

We plan to hold two sessions in 2024. 

For our first session, there is an open call for papers. We welcome abstracts along the goals of the unit as specified in the research group description above, whether from a theoretical perspective or as case studies. Regardless of the focus of the paper, we encourage presenters to include methodological considerations. 

Our second session is intended to give an opportunity to contributors to the T&T Clark Handbook of Bible and Emotion, currently in preparation, to present drafts of their essays and offer them space for conversation both with other contributors, and other scholars with an interest in the topic. There is thus no open call for this session.