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1997-1998
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Topic for
1997-1998:
Textual Commentary as Social Practice
For 1997-98, the PSCO brought together scholars of early
Judaism, scholars of early Christianity, and classicists to examine
interpretation as a social practice in the Mediterranean world of the
first through fifth centuries CE, from Philo of Alexandria through
Augustine of Hippo. Among the various literary forms in which
interpretative practice is expressed, we have chosen to focus on the
commentary as a genre (and the commentary mode within texts in other
genres) -- precisely the mode of writing that most appears to subordinate
the writer to the authority of the text under interpretation. In order to
make sense of commentary writing in late antiquity, we wish to situate it
within the context of ancient modes of reading, ancient modes of
construing the relation of text and meaning, and ancient modes of
transmitting knowledge, as these can be reconstructed within particular
communities and cultures.

Schedule
| 25 September |
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Maxine Grossman, University of Pennsylvania
"Textual Strategies, Authoritative Voice, and the Dead
Sea Scrolls" |
| 6 November |
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David Dawson, Haverford College
"Figural Reading and the Fashioning of
Christian Identity: Origen on Body, History and Narrative" |
| 22 January 1998 |
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Daniel Boyarin, University of California at Berkeley
"The Bartered Word: Midrash and Symbolic Economy"
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| 19 March 1998 |
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Robert Lamberton, Washington University
"Homer, Porphyry, and his Commentaries" |
| 2 April 1998 |
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James O'Donnell, University of Pennsylvania
"Textualizing the World Afresh: The Place of
Scriptures in the Latin Church from Augustine to Cassiodorus" |
| 14 May 1998 |
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A Panel of Scholars |

3/10/98
Jay Treat
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