Passing Through: A Poem by Michal Lemberger

Philip Culbertson writes:

In Nineteen Hundred and Forty-Four–the date was Columbus Day, October 12–I was sailed like a frisbee quite involuntarily into the ocean of patriarchal heterosexism, of male hegemony, and of maternal betrayal, as the mark of circumcision was inscribed forever on my flesh. As I was hurled through the fog-obscured skies of gender expectation, my foreskin was ripped away in a gust/o of parental violence.

To the full text of “Pee(k)ing into Derrida’s Underpants: Circumcision, Textual Multiplexity, and the Cannibalistic Mother”

Book Review

Noam Zohar writes:

With some books, producing a review takes longer than one would like, on account of their shortcomings: it is hard to find anything worthwhile to say. With “Rational Rabbis”, my tardiness has been caused rather by the book’s great richness. Menachem Fisch is to be praised, and thanked, for setting a broad and important agenda for our thinking about Rabbinic discourse in general, and the Bavli’s conception of the Torah and its study in particular.

To the full review of Menahem Fisch, Rational Rabbis

Discussion

Michael Zank writes:

In the Middle Ages–shrewdly or honestly (see Leo Strauss on “Persecution and the Art of Writing”!)–there prevails the assumption of the mental and moral superiority of the author of the text relative to the reader: the prophetology of perfect mind in combination with an imagination perfectly attuned to the perfect mind accounts for the fact that the perfect law combines within itself philosophical and popular meanings. Prophetological hermeneutics achieves this by referring to a full coherence of authorial intent and textual meanings.

The the full text of Some Thoughts on Hermeneutics and Textual Reasoning

Submissions

We cordially invite submissions on any topic associated with the purposes of textual reasoning. If possible, please send a diskette formatted for Macintosh (Word 98 or lower) to Michael Zank, Dept. of Religion, Boston University, 745 Commonwealth Ave, Boston, MA. 02215, or attach file to an email message and send to mzank@bu.edu.

Your comments are welcome to us!