DailyHebrew.com

Unless you have been living under a rock for the last month, word about the SBL restrictions on student papers has reached your disenfranchised ears. Here’s an excerpt:

There has also been considerable discussion about the criteria for the participation of
students as paper presenters for the Annual Meeting. Council has also taken the
following unanimous actions:
-All students without a doctoral degree are required to submit to the Program Unit
Chair the full text of the paper they are proposing to read.
-The number of sessions a student without a doctoral degree can participate in will
be limited to one.
Council would also like to remind members who serve as teachers, mentors and advisors
that our Regional Meetings often represent an excellent opportunity for students to
present papers.

In response, a Facebook Group has been created along with a student survey. Also, some speculation on the (lack of) enforcement by program chairs.

So much for SBL avoiding more controversy!

Ever since Ron Hendel announced his departure from SBL, the bloggers are going crazy and so too is SBL with a mass email, usually reserved for monetary requests, and some heavy rhetoric (at one point correcting Hendel's preposition usage–"the Society for (not “of”) Pentecostal Studies").  One can see how the ship may be at stake, or at least risk taking on some water, if members start abandoning ship (to push the metaphor a bit!).  I, for one, will remain a member of SBL, but shall be on the lookout for hellfire and brimstone or other such frivolity!

UPDATE:

June 28, 2010

Dear Member,

We are pleased to announce that on June 10, 2010, the Society of Biblical Literature and American Academy of Religion signed a Letter of Intent that outlines an agreement to hold concurrent Annual Meetings beginning in San Francisco in the fall of 2011. These meetings will

• Occur in the same city—though the venue will change from year to year;
• Occur at the same time—the weekend before the US Thanksgiving holiday;
• Feature a single, jointly managed Publishers/Software/Book Exhibit;
• Feature a single, jointly managed Employment Center;
• Feature distinct and separate AAR and SBL programs planned with open communication between the organizations;
• Encourage the organizations’ members to attend each other’s programs and events at no additional cost;
• Allow the organizations to pursue their unique, if sometimes overlapping, missions;
• Enhance cooperation, not competition, between the organizations.

The advertising for these conventions will use the city name, the year, and will identify the SBL and AAR as hosts. For example, the first of these meetings will be known as “Annual Meetings 2011 San Francisco, hosted by the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature.” This name will appear on the registration gateway, on signage at the meetings, on promotional materials, and on other common elements.

A Conventions Management Committee, consisting of the Executive Directors and staff members from each organization, is developing operating policies and procedures that expand on the considerable detail that already exists in the Letter of Intent. Each year the Committee will review the most recent meetings with an eye toward making improvements in subsequent gatherings. Nine concurrent meetings are being planned for 2011 through 2019. Beginning in 2013 the organizations will begin operating on a seven-year planning horizon that includes a mechanism by which the organizations can, on an annual basis, extend the seven-year agreement for an additional year. Dates and venues of the first three concurrent Annual Meetings are as follows:

• November 19-22, 2011 San Francisco
• November 17-20, 2012 Chicago
• November 23-26, 2013 Baltimore

We believe that concurrent meetings will serve the interests of our members, will help to advance the many disciplines and areas of study we represent, and will maintain and advance the critical inquiry that characterizes the work of our societies. We invite you to join us in building this exciting new future.

Cordially,

The posts will be few this week as I am attending the conferences in New Orleans.  Look for regular readings to resume next week.  Safe travels to all of you who are on their way here; I look forward to seeing many of you this weekend.

The Hebrew and Greek Reader blog has a nearly exhaustive list of presentations by Bibliobloggers at this year's SBL national meeting.

The Preliminary Program Book is available here. 

*My presentation is presently scheduled for Monday morning.

23-107

Aramaic Studies
11/23/2009
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM

Christian M. Brady, Pennsylvania State University University Park, Presiding

Daniel Machiela, McMaster University
Reevaluating the Language of the Genesis Apocryphon in Light of Qumran Aramaic (30 min)

Dr. Alejandro F. Botta, Boston University
To Hate your Spouse or to Divorce Him/Her: A Reassessment of the Use ??? in Elephantine. (30 min)

David Rensberger, Interdenominational Theological Center
A First-century C.E. Syriac Text: The Letter of Mara bar Serapion (30 min)

Humphrey H. Hardy II, The University of Chicago
THE TELL FEKHERIYEH STELE: DIALECT, WORD ORDER, AND SCRIBAL SYMBIOSIS (30 min)

Paul Flesher, University of Wyoming
Oral Translating and Written Targum: The Role of Translation according to Rabbinic Literature (30 min)