New Academic Association Devoted to the Study of Christian Apocrypha

At the conclusion of the 2013 York Christian Apocrypha Symposium there was discussion of creating a North American academic association for the study of Christian Apocrypha, a counterpart of sorts to l’AELAC (the French/Swiss group of scholars responsible for the Corpus Christianorum Series Apocryphorum and other publishing endeavours). We soon established a founding board and met at SBL in November 2014 to consider the group’s mandate, possible collaborative projects, and the very important decision of what do we call the thing? After a few false starts we came up with the North American Society for the Study of Christian Apocryphal Literature (NASSCAL). Since November we have elected an executive and created a web site to promote the group and to build a membership. The existence of the group was formally announced at this past weekend’s 2015 York Christian Apocrypha Symposium.

We encourage everyone—established scholars, independent scholars, graduate students—to become members. There is no membership fee! Simply sign up at NASSCAL.com and take advantage of the resources and networking opportunities that the society provides. Over the coming months we will be working to grow our membership base and then begin discussions of future projects, including assembling a comprehensive online bibliography of Christian Apocrypha research, establishing a bi-annual conference, and creating an open access journal.

A byproduct of the creation of NASSCAL is the conclusion of the York Christian Apocrypha Symposium Series. It will be replaced by NASSCAL gatherings, which will take place in various cities in Canada and the US. The first is planned for Ottawa in 2017.

The NASSCAL executive comprises Tony Burke (President), Janet Spittler (Vice-President), Brent Landau (Communications Officer), and Bradley Rice (Student Member). The members-at-large are Charles Hedrick, Cornelia Horn, F. Stanley Jones, Stephen Patterson, Pierluigi Piovanelli, Annette Yoshiko Reed, Jean-Michel Roessli, and Stephen Shoemaker.