CSBS...

Jin and I just got back from Ottawa where I was attending the annual meeting of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies. I had the opportunity to present my first paper at an academic conference. The paper is called "(Re)Visionary History: Historiography and Religious Identity in the Animal Apocalypse," and is based on some ideas that I worked on in my MA thesis. I presented it in the Ancient Historiography session, and in it I discuss the use of pseudonymous authorship and clean/unclean divisions in the imagery of the Animal Apocalypse of 1 Enoch 85-90. I won't publish the paper here as I'll be submitting it for publication in the edited volume that the session puts out each year, but if anyone wants a copy feel free to drop me an email.

It was a great conference over-all. My presentation went very well, and the paper was well received. I had the chance to argue with Prof. John Van Seters, which was an honour. There were any number of other interesting and enjoyable papers during the conference. I think that my two favorites were Ehud Ben Zvi's paper on whether the label "Deuteronomistic" is anything more than a modern scholarly construct, and John Kessler's paper on the "Empty Land" motif in Persian period Yehud. It was also great to meet some well-known OT scholars, as well as many other grad students. I got to put faces to a lot of names, which is always nice. Everyone was tremendously welcoming and though I was quite tired by the end, it was an excellent experience and I look forward to going again.

As a side note, I was involved in an online discussion with AKMA and Mark Goodacre a few weeks ago over whether it is better to read from a manuscript or to use skeletal notes during academic presentations. Though I argued there for manuscripts, I decided to take Dr. Goodacre's advice and try presenting from notes alone. I must say, I believe that he was very right. I was able to hit all of my major points, I didn't get bogged down in the complicated technical language you find in lots of presentations, and my friends tell me that mine was one of the more relaxed and accessible presentations they saw. I think that I'll try the "notes only" formula again in future and see if it keeps working for me.