Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere

Prof. Robert Kawashima, 2017 Rothman Faculty Summer Fellow (Dept. of Religion)
Bhakti Mamtora, 2016-17 Tedder Family Doctoral Fellow (Dept. of Religion)
Thursday, 22 February – 4:00pm-5:00pm, Grinter Hall 471 (Center for African Studies Conference Room)

How to Read Genesis 1-11
Prof. Robert Kawashima

One of the great and enduring achievements of modern philology is the Documentary Hypothesis, which posits that the Pentateuch consists of four sources that were later combined by a redactor or compiler into the continuous narrative stretching from Genesis through Deuteronomy. Insofar as the Pentateuch is one of the foundational works of the western literary tradition, an important question arises: How are we to read such a work? In order to illustrate the problems involved and some of their solutions, I will examine in detail a few select passages from the Primeval History, Genesis 1-11.

History, Scripture and Religion in Western India
Bhakti Mamtora

Scholars of religion have often considered the presence of charismatic figures, the development of literary canons, and the construction of congregational spaces as factors that give rise to and shape sectarian traditions throughout the world. This paper focuses on one of these factors by considering the ways in which sermons emerge and become revered as sacred texts in Western India. It takes the Swaminarayan Sampraday, a Hindu devotional tradition founded in Western India at the turn of the 19th-century as a case study to examine the genesis, history and reception of scripture in Hindu traditions.

This event is part of the 2017-18 UF Synergies: Current Scholarship in the Humanities series, which features informal talks by the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere’s Rothman Faculty Summer Fellows, Tedder Doctoral Fellows, and Rothman Doctoral Fellows. Fellows will each speak for 20 minutes about their funded work, leaving ample time for questions and discussion amongst the projects.

This event is free and open to the public.
Click for more information on becoming a Rothman Faculty Summer Fellow, a Tedder Family Doctoral Fellow.
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See more information on this series.