2021 David Noel Freedman Lecture

Objects form the critical deposits of museums and archives. This becomes obviously true in the case of biblical museums and archives that desperately rely upon material remains to bring the Bible to life. These archives have been central to Biblical Studies and the maintenance of the Bible as a product of imperial modernity. The Bible as a text and archive plays a critical role in the production and maintenance of the narratives of racial capitalism, a central aspect of Western modernity. By examining the language and ephemera of contemporary readers, who have been racialized by imperial logics that produce Bible translations and narrativize objects in archives, this presentation situates the geography of contemporary racialized readers as the site from which to develop an archive of the Bible. Local geographies, both the specific geography of the context of the Bible and the geography of a modern reader, are seen as productive challenges to the universalizing myths of modernity. Greater attention to contextual languages and experiences offer opportunities to unmask the cultural and geographical boundedness of stories, objects, and lives that form the core deposit of the Bible.

Please register here: https://umich.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_d4hdv79nRRO1MpB0zbNDCQ