Call for Papers: 2015 York Christian Apocrypha Symposium
CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS
York University Christian Apocrypha Symposium Series 2015
“Fakes, Forgeries, and Fictions” Writing Ancient and Modern Christian Apocrypha
September 24-26, 2015
We are pleased to announce the third of a series of symposia on the Christian Apocrypha hosted by the Department of the Humanities at York University in Toronto, Canada and taking place September 24 to 26, 2015.
The 2015 symposium will examine the possible motivations behind the production of Christian apocrypha from antiquity until the present day. Have authors of the Christian apocrypha intended to deceive others about the true origins of their writings? Have they done so in a way that is distinctly different from NT scriptural writings? What would phrases like “intended to deceive” or “true origins” even mean in various historical and cultural contexts? This symposium has been inspired by the recent publication and analysis of the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife, and it will, among other topics, examine what the reactions to this particular text—primarily in popular media, including biblioblogs— can tell us about the creation, transmission, and reception of apocryphal Christian literature.
We encourage scholars from across North America to join us and share their research on topics that include but are not limited to: pseudepigraphy, modern apocrypha, authorship as canon criterion, possible motives for composition of “apocryphal” texts, the reception of Christian apocrypha in scholarship and/or popular media, and the recycling of non-Christian texts into Christian apocrypha. The program will include a panel focusing on the reception of the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife. We welcome proposals from both established scholars and graduate students.
Email abstracts for papers or panel proposals to Tony Burke (tburke@yorku.ca) or Brent Landau (bclandau@utexas.edu) by September 30, 2014. Abstracts for papers should be approximately 300 words.
Travel and accommodation for all presenters is fully-funded by the Symposium. Presenters must be prepared to circulate drafts of their papers to registered Symposium participants two weeks prior to the event.
Previous symposia in the series:
2013: “Forbidden Texts on the Western Frontier: The Christian Apocrypha in North American Perspectives” (papers to be published by Cascade books in 2015).
2011: “Ancient Gospel of Modern Forgery? The Secret Gospel of Mark in Debate” (papers published by Cascade Books, 2013)