tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post3555971703512675653..comments2024-03-10T20:46:19.274-04:00Comments on In the Middle: Flash Review III: Daniel Boyarin, Dying for GodCord J. Whitakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06224143153295429986noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-69705668962144084982008-12-16T07:52:00.000-05:002008-12-16T07:52:00.000-05:00Thanks for the comment Nic. I've been reading Bord...Thanks for the comment Nic. I've been reading <EM>Border Lines</EM> in tandem with <EM>Dying for God</EM> and hope to do a flash review of it as well.<BR/><BR/>I too have always found myself drawn to late antiquity, not just because I have an inordinate fascination for desert dwelling hermits, but also because it seems a time period when many of the identity categories we take for granted in the Middle Ages were quite in flux: not just Christian/Jew, but also Roman/barbarian (where "barbarbian" stands in for many, many possible ethnic/racial identifications).<BR/><BR/>Thanks for the additional references, some of which are cited in Boyarin's own work. And since you bring up mrtyrs, here is my main question about <EM>Dying for God</EM>: Boyarin posits that Jewish and Jewish Christian martyrs are versions of the same thing, those who die for (eroticized) love of deity. I'm wondering, though, if in the martyrs we don't also see a difference: that is, could we say that the heterogeneous Judaism that Boyarin argues Christianity was one version of was mainly NOT at all concerned with conversion and proselytizing, but that Christian Judaism was? Maybe the only way to make that question work is to broaden it: most Judaism was (maybe) not significantly invested in questions of conversion or proselytizing; Christian Judaism and other, similar messiah sects were. Doesn't that indicate a difference that needs to be accounted for? You won't find much in Boyarin about conversion...Jeffrey Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-55945616466069510272008-12-16T01:59:00.000-05:002008-12-16T01:59:00.000-05:00JJC: I'm glad to hear you think highly of Boyarin...JJC: I'm glad to hear you think highly of Boyarin's book. I haven't picked it back up for a long while, but immediately, with a shudder, tore into my bookcase to revisit the matter. I first read the book while in a course on late antique martyrdom and apocalyptic literature at Yale. It was a truly eye-opening moment for me. I was at that time, despite my ever present historicist impulses, still very steeped in philosophy and theology and their worlds of intra-disciplinary speech. Reading Boyarin, along with several other late ancient studies scholars, became my first forays into contemporary critical/cultural theory.<BR/><BR/>I've since gone back and found something I wrote on Boyarin and another scholar, Judith Perkins. I cleaned it up a bit, and will post it on my blog. It's not much, and only an excerpt from a larger paper. And it was written in 2003 - I cringe now reading it. <BR/><BR/>Since you liked Boyarin so much, you might also be interested in reading his most recent book, where he takes up and works out the theme of a Jewish/Christian "parting of the ways" that's already present in "Dying for God." It's called "Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity" (Penn, 2004). It's part of a really fantastic series that he co-edits, "Divinations: Reading Late Antique Religion."<BR/><BR/>Also, Boyarin's good friend, co-editor, and collaborator, Virgina Burrus, has two volumes in that same series that are really worth a look: "Sex Lives of Saints" and her recent "Saving Shame." Other recent martyr studies I'd recommend are Elizabeth Castelli's "Martyrdom and Memory: Early Christian Culture Making" (Columbia, 2004); and Stephanie Cobb's "Dying to Be Men: Gender and Language in Early Christian Martyr Texts" (Columbia, 2008). These last two are part of the same series at Columbia, "Gender, Theory, and Religion," edited by Amy Hollywood.<BR/><BR/>I've always lloved late ancient Christianity, and often find some of stunningly exciting historiographical/theoretical work being done there. I worked for some time on, and still think about, martyrdom, especially issues of gender and historiography.Nic D'Alessiohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05332559721931312734noreply@blogger.com