Marianne Schleicher | Aarhus University (original) (raw)
Papers by Marianne Schleicher
Postscripts: The Journal of Sacred Texts, Cultural Histories, and Contemporary Contexts
This article argues that the concept of “sacred texture” is a necessary supplement to standard un... more This article argues that the concept of “sacred texture” is a necessary supplement to standard understandings of sacred texts in Jewish religion to capture lay people’s, especially women’s, material-embodied acts as aspects of sacred text use. Such acts may include spoken or performed fragments or sequences from a sacred text that activate associations to it and thereby make the acts intelligible as representations of the sacred text, be it up close or at a distance. The article draws upon, but also expands perspectives on sacred texts as material objects (Malley, Watts, and Schleicher) by including theories by Halliday and Hasan, and Ricoeur on texture, by Deleuze and Guattari on processes of becoming, and by Butler on identity as something emerging from engagements in a culture’s iterative acts. The theoretical underpinnings beg the question of who has access when and where to which particular iterative acts that involve sacred texts and textures? The analysis begins with the Hebr...
Religionsvidenskabelig Skriftrække
Dette kapitel analyserer forekomster af ‘glæde’ śimḥâ (שִׂמְחָה) og ‘at glæde sig’, jf. verbalrod... more Dette kapitel analyserer forekomster af ‘glæde’ śimḥâ (שִׂמְחָה) og ‘at glæde sig’, jf. verbalroden śāmaḥ (שָׂמַח) i bibelske og tidligt jødiske tekster med det formål at reflektere over aspekter i glædens religionshistoriske udvikling. Baseret på elektroniske søgninger på glæde/roden שמח, inklusive afledninger, har jeg udvalgt forekomster, der vedrører religiøs glæde og grupperet dem ud fra konteksterne: Visdom, myte og ritualiserede handlinger. Kapitlet konkluderer at glæde især i kontekst af ritualiserede handlinger først supplerer den kultiske ofring, men siden i en bevægelse fra velsignelsesreligion til frelsesreligion overtager den kultiske ofrings funktion i forhold til at markere en ihukommelse af eller en tillid til gudens indgriben, hvorfor glæden løftes med ind i ordgudstjenesten. Analysen indebærer, at jeg føjer argumenter til Hans Jørgen Lundager Jensens idé om at erstatte udtrykket “do ut des” (jeg giver, for at du må give) med udtrykket “do quia dedisti” (jeg giver, f...
Entanglements and Weavings: Diffractive Approaches to Gender and Love, 2020
Intertextuality in the Tales of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav
Intertextuality in the Tales of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav
Rabbi Nahman’s turn from homiletic discourse to telling tales would, according to the American in... more Rabbi Nahman’s turn from homiletic discourse to telling tales would, according to the American intellectual historian Hayden White (1927–), be a matter of tropology. In presenting his tropology of discourse, White draws upon the psychologist Jean Piaget. Piaget distinguishes between four “restructurations” of the perceptual field in the development of a child’s cognitive powers: the sensorimotor, representational, operational and rational. White provides the modern scholar with one explanation of why Nahman would include telling tales as an additional means of communication. However, White’s inclusion of Piaget does not provide a detailed explanation or description of the cognitive achievements available once one operates within the most imaginative kind of discourse; i.e., poetic language. This chapter explains what Nahman achieved by turning to telling tales by focusing on his poetic, figurative language, characterized in Sippurey Maʾasiyot by intertextuality.Keywords: Hayden White; intertextuality; Jean Piaget; Rabbi Nahman; Sippurey Maʾasiyot
Intertextuality in the Tales of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav
Nahman ben Simhah, later known as Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav, was born on April 4, 1772, in Medzhib... more Nahman ben Simhah, later known as Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav, was born on April 4, 1772, in Medzhibozh, the Ukraine. Nahman’s great-grandfather on the maternal side was Israel ben Eliezer Baʾal Shem Tov. The Baʾal Shem Tov, also known as the BeShT, was considered the founding father of Hasidism at the time of Nahman. Bratslav sources claim that Nahman had, by the age of nine, completed reading the Talmud, Shulkhan Arukh, Sefer haZohar, and various Musar books. Green adds that Tikkuney Zohar, the entire corpus of Lurianic writings, Reshit Hokhmah, and the Hebrew Bible were also part of Nahman’s childhood readings. The thirteen tales in Sippurey Maʾasiyot are dissimilar to any previous Jewish mystical expression. Nahman created something new. Nevertheless, he was most likely inspired by different sources. Nahman’s real intention behind turning to telling tales depends on something else, according to Joseph Dan.Keywords: Bratslav; Hebrew Bible; Jewish mystical expression; Rabbi Nahman; Sippurey Maʾasiyot
Postscripts: The Journal of Sacred Texts, Cultural Histories, and Contemporary Contexts
Religionsvidenskabeligt Tidsskrift, 2002
This paper outlines the currently-dominant ‘difference paradigm’ in the study of social identity,... more This paper outlines the currently-dominant ‘difference paradigm’ in the study of social identity, and argues that, for three reasons, it is time to move on. First, to concentrate on difference makes it impossible to understand what identity is and how it works. Second, to concentrate on difference is to fly in the face of the observable realities of everyday human life. Third, to concentrate on difference makes it impossible to deal with the core questions of social theory, or even, perhaps, to engage in social theory at all. It is proposed that a model of identification as simultaneously a matter of similarity and difference is required if these criticisms are to be met.
Religionsvidenskabeligt Tidsskrift, Mar 17, 2004
Religionsvidenskabeligt Tidsskrift, Mar 17, 2004
Kvinder, Køn & Forskning, 1997
Kvinder, Køn & Forskning, 1997
Vores verden er besat af at udforske og overskride kroppen.(...) Overalt synes at svaeve en drøm ... more Vores verden er besat af at udforske og overskride kroppen.(...) Overalt synes at svaeve en drøm om at udvide biologisk bestemte og kulturelt definerede graenser og fra kroppens dyb at fremløfte og synliggøre et "aegte" jeg". (oversae ttelse fra svensk, red.) Med denne samtidsdiagnosticering indleder redaktørene Lundin og Åkesson deres svenske antologi, hvori ikke bare kroppens tid men også tidens krop er sat på den kulturanalytiske dagsorden. Med citatet peges på én af de antagelser, som er gennemgående for hele bogen, nemlig den, at et karakteristikon for den senmoderne verden er, at kroppen i stigende grad betragtes som locus for det enkelte menneskes identitet og personlighed. Redaktørenes sigte med bogen er dog ikke at belyse, hvorfor det forholder sig sådan, men snarere hvor og hvordan faenomenet kommer til udtryk. At bogen favner bredt fremgår allerede af titlens flertydighed. Den refererer ikke bare til kroppens biologiske tid men også til den kulturelle tid og de livsmønstre, som omgiver os på kanten til det 21. århundrede. Flertydigheden afspejler sig endvidere i antologiens opbygning, hvor artiklernes
Gender and Love in the Jewish Bible and Early Rabbinical Literature Based on theories by Michel F... more Gender and Love in the Jewish Bible and Early Rabbinical Literature Based on theories by Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and Luce Irigaray, the article assumes that every culture must navigate wisely between unequivocal normativity and subversion of norms in the face of the complexity that characterises material culture as a means to secure cultural survival. With analyses of human gender, God’s gender, human love, and God’s love in the Hebrew Bible and early rabbinic literature, the article investigates how portrayals of gender and love regulate Israelite and Rabbinic Jewish culture by disseminating unequivocal norms. It also explains the rationale behind tolerance toward complex, composite, dynamic, and ambiguous variations of gender and love in some of the most dramatic and poetic passages in the founding texts of Israelite and Rabbinic Jewish culture. The article concludes that unequivocal normativity as well as tolerance toward complexity in literary representations of gender a...
Gender and Love in the Jewish Bible and Early Rabbinical Literature Based on theories by Michel F... more Gender and Love in the Jewish Bible and Early Rabbinical Literature Based on theories by Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and Luce Irigaray, the article assumes that every culture must navigate wisely between unequivocal normativity and subversion of norms in the face of the complexity that characterises material culture as a means to secure cultural survival. With analyses of human gender, God’s gender, human love, and God’s love in the Hebrew Bible and early rabbinic literature, the article investigates how portrayals of gender and love regulate Israelite and Rabbinic Jewish culture by disseminating unequivocal norms. It also explains the rationale behind tolerance toward complex, composite, dynamic, and ambiguous variations of gender and love in some of the most dramatic and poetic passages in the founding texts of Israelite and Rabbinic Jewish culture. The article concludes that unequivocal normativity as well as tolerance toward complexity in literary representations of gender a...
Religionsvidenskabeligt Tidsskrift
The purpose of this article is to supplement scholarly positions that define asceticism either as... more The purpose of this article is to supplement scholarly positions that define asceticism either as a matter of world renouncement and elitist self-exclusion from the world or as always oriented toward transcendent goals or practices of improvement because these positions run the risk of overlooking moderate kinds of asceticism. Israelite, early Jewish, and early Rabbinic Jewish religion are replete with examples of moderate asceticism where both men and women are encouraged to engage in abstinence and self-training in order – not to improve, but – to preserve a religious tradition. With Steven D. Fraade’s definition of asceticism as a departing point, the article examines abstinence and self-training in the Hebrew Bible, early Jewish and early Rabbinic literature. The author discerns three types of moderate asceticism: that of the priest, the layperson, and the hero/-ine. These three types complement each other in a shared effort to preserve divine blessings in this world and thereby...
Religionsvidenskabeligt Tidsskrift, Sep 11, 2008
Literature and Theology, 2011
Responding to the ethical and performative call of Judith Butler not to propagate the sex- and ge... more Responding to the ethical and performative call of Judith Butler not to propagate the sex- and gender-related violence of the imbedded discourse that we study, this article inquires into the discursive strategies of Jewish scripture by analysing how it orchestrates certain norms of sex and gender and make them serve the overall aim of securing cultural survival. Following this, it traces reflections on persons of ambiguous or indeterminate sex from rabbinic to modern Judaism so as to inquire into the rabbinic dependency on scripture when non-conforming individuals challenge its bipolar sex and gender system. Finally, the article considers if scripture, as suggested by Butler, can play a subversive role in how we attend to non-conforming others today. To do so, the author’s distinction between hermeneutical and artifactual uses of scripture is presented to evaluate the extent to which modern Jews and non-Jews are able to influence their own representations of sex and gender and thus liberate themselves from the normativity implied by scriptural discourse.
Postscripts: The Journal of Sacred Texts, Cultural Histories, and Contemporary Contexts
This article argues that the concept of “sacred texture” is a necessary supplement to standard un... more This article argues that the concept of “sacred texture” is a necessary supplement to standard understandings of sacred texts in Jewish religion to capture lay people’s, especially women’s, material-embodied acts as aspects of sacred text use. Such acts may include spoken or performed fragments or sequences from a sacred text that activate associations to it and thereby make the acts intelligible as representations of the sacred text, be it up close or at a distance. The article draws upon, but also expands perspectives on sacred texts as material objects (Malley, Watts, and Schleicher) by including theories by Halliday and Hasan, and Ricoeur on texture, by Deleuze and Guattari on processes of becoming, and by Butler on identity as something emerging from engagements in a culture’s iterative acts. The theoretical underpinnings beg the question of who has access when and where to which particular iterative acts that involve sacred texts and textures? The analysis begins with the Hebr...
Religionsvidenskabelig Skriftrække
Dette kapitel analyserer forekomster af ‘glæde’ śimḥâ (שִׂמְחָה) og ‘at glæde sig’, jf. verbalrod... more Dette kapitel analyserer forekomster af ‘glæde’ śimḥâ (שִׂמְחָה) og ‘at glæde sig’, jf. verbalroden śāmaḥ (שָׂמַח) i bibelske og tidligt jødiske tekster med det formål at reflektere over aspekter i glædens religionshistoriske udvikling. Baseret på elektroniske søgninger på glæde/roden שמח, inklusive afledninger, har jeg udvalgt forekomster, der vedrører religiøs glæde og grupperet dem ud fra konteksterne: Visdom, myte og ritualiserede handlinger. Kapitlet konkluderer at glæde især i kontekst af ritualiserede handlinger først supplerer den kultiske ofring, men siden i en bevægelse fra velsignelsesreligion til frelsesreligion overtager den kultiske ofrings funktion i forhold til at markere en ihukommelse af eller en tillid til gudens indgriben, hvorfor glæden løftes med ind i ordgudstjenesten. Analysen indebærer, at jeg føjer argumenter til Hans Jørgen Lundager Jensens idé om at erstatte udtrykket “do ut des” (jeg giver, for at du må give) med udtrykket “do quia dedisti” (jeg giver, f...
Entanglements and Weavings: Diffractive Approaches to Gender and Love, 2020
Intertextuality in the Tales of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav
Intertextuality in the Tales of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav
Rabbi Nahman’s turn from homiletic discourse to telling tales would, according to the American in... more Rabbi Nahman’s turn from homiletic discourse to telling tales would, according to the American intellectual historian Hayden White (1927–), be a matter of tropology. In presenting his tropology of discourse, White draws upon the psychologist Jean Piaget. Piaget distinguishes between four “restructurations” of the perceptual field in the development of a child’s cognitive powers: the sensorimotor, representational, operational and rational. White provides the modern scholar with one explanation of why Nahman would include telling tales as an additional means of communication. However, White’s inclusion of Piaget does not provide a detailed explanation or description of the cognitive achievements available once one operates within the most imaginative kind of discourse; i.e., poetic language. This chapter explains what Nahman achieved by turning to telling tales by focusing on his poetic, figurative language, characterized in Sippurey Maʾasiyot by intertextuality.Keywords: Hayden White; intertextuality; Jean Piaget; Rabbi Nahman; Sippurey Maʾasiyot
Intertextuality in the Tales of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav
Nahman ben Simhah, later known as Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav, was born on April 4, 1772, in Medzhib... more Nahman ben Simhah, later known as Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav, was born on April 4, 1772, in Medzhibozh, the Ukraine. Nahman’s great-grandfather on the maternal side was Israel ben Eliezer Baʾal Shem Tov. The Baʾal Shem Tov, also known as the BeShT, was considered the founding father of Hasidism at the time of Nahman. Bratslav sources claim that Nahman had, by the age of nine, completed reading the Talmud, Shulkhan Arukh, Sefer haZohar, and various Musar books. Green adds that Tikkuney Zohar, the entire corpus of Lurianic writings, Reshit Hokhmah, and the Hebrew Bible were also part of Nahman’s childhood readings. The thirteen tales in Sippurey Maʾasiyot are dissimilar to any previous Jewish mystical expression. Nahman created something new. Nevertheless, he was most likely inspired by different sources. Nahman’s real intention behind turning to telling tales depends on something else, according to Joseph Dan.Keywords: Bratslav; Hebrew Bible; Jewish mystical expression; Rabbi Nahman; Sippurey Maʾasiyot
Postscripts: The Journal of Sacred Texts, Cultural Histories, and Contemporary Contexts
Religionsvidenskabeligt Tidsskrift, 2002
This paper outlines the currently-dominant ‘difference paradigm’ in the study of social identity,... more This paper outlines the currently-dominant ‘difference paradigm’ in the study of social identity, and argues that, for three reasons, it is time to move on. First, to concentrate on difference makes it impossible to understand what identity is and how it works. Second, to concentrate on difference is to fly in the face of the observable realities of everyday human life. Third, to concentrate on difference makes it impossible to deal with the core questions of social theory, or even, perhaps, to engage in social theory at all. It is proposed that a model of identification as simultaneously a matter of similarity and difference is required if these criticisms are to be met.
Religionsvidenskabeligt Tidsskrift, Mar 17, 2004
Religionsvidenskabeligt Tidsskrift, Mar 17, 2004
Kvinder, Køn & Forskning, 1997
Kvinder, Køn & Forskning, 1997
Vores verden er besat af at udforske og overskride kroppen.(...) Overalt synes at svaeve en drøm ... more Vores verden er besat af at udforske og overskride kroppen.(...) Overalt synes at svaeve en drøm om at udvide biologisk bestemte og kulturelt definerede graenser og fra kroppens dyb at fremløfte og synliggøre et "aegte" jeg". (oversae ttelse fra svensk, red.) Med denne samtidsdiagnosticering indleder redaktørene Lundin og Åkesson deres svenske antologi, hvori ikke bare kroppens tid men også tidens krop er sat på den kulturanalytiske dagsorden. Med citatet peges på én af de antagelser, som er gennemgående for hele bogen, nemlig den, at et karakteristikon for den senmoderne verden er, at kroppen i stigende grad betragtes som locus for det enkelte menneskes identitet og personlighed. Redaktørenes sigte med bogen er dog ikke at belyse, hvorfor det forholder sig sådan, men snarere hvor og hvordan faenomenet kommer til udtryk. At bogen favner bredt fremgår allerede af titlens flertydighed. Den refererer ikke bare til kroppens biologiske tid men også til den kulturelle tid og de livsmønstre, som omgiver os på kanten til det 21. århundrede. Flertydigheden afspejler sig endvidere i antologiens opbygning, hvor artiklernes
Gender and Love in the Jewish Bible and Early Rabbinical Literature Based on theories by Michel F... more Gender and Love in the Jewish Bible and Early Rabbinical Literature Based on theories by Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and Luce Irigaray, the article assumes that every culture must navigate wisely between unequivocal normativity and subversion of norms in the face of the complexity that characterises material culture as a means to secure cultural survival. With analyses of human gender, God’s gender, human love, and God’s love in the Hebrew Bible and early rabbinic literature, the article investigates how portrayals of gender and love regulate Israelite and Rabbinic Jewish culture by disseminating unequivocal norms. It also explains the rationale behind tolerance toward complex, composite, dynamic, and ambiguous variations of gender and love in some of the most dramatic and poetic passages in the founding texts of Israelite and Rabbinic Jewish culture. The article concludes that unequivocal normativity as well as tolerance toward complexity in literary representations of gender a...
Gender and Love in the Jewish Bible and Early Rabbinical Literature Based on theories by Michel F... more Gender and Love in the Jewish Bible and Early Rabbinical Literature Based on theories by Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and Luce Irigaray, the article assumes that every culture must navigate wisely between unequivocal normativity and subversion of norms in the face of the complexity that characterises material culture as a means to secure cultural survival. With analyses of human gender, God’s gender, human love, and God’s love in the Hebrew Bible and early rabbinic literature, the article investigates how portrayals of gender and love regulate Israelite and Rabbinic Jewish culture by disseminating unequivocal norms. It also explains the rationale behind tolerance toward complex, composite, dynamic, and ambiguous variations of gender and love in some of the most dramatic and poetic passages in the founding texts of Israelite and Rabbinic Jewish culture. The article concludes that unequivocal normativity as well as tolerance toward complexity in literary representations of gender a...
Religionsvidenskabeligt Tidsskrift
The purpose of this article is to supplement scholarly positions that define asceticism either as... more The purpose of this article is to supplement scholarly positions that define asceticism either as a matter of world renouncement and elitist self-exclusion from the world or as always oriented toward transcendent goals or practices of improvement because these positions run the risk of overlooking moderate kinds of asceticism. Israelite, early Jewish, and early Rabbinic Jewish religion are replete with examples of moderate asceticism where both men and women are encouraged to engage in abstinence and self-training in order – not to improve, but – to preserve a religious tradition. With Steven D. Fraade’s definition of asceticism as a departing point, the article examines abstinence and self-training in the Hebrew Bible, early Jewish and early Rabbinic literature. The author discerns three types of moderate asceticism: that of the priest, the layperson, and the hero/-ine. These three types complement each other in a shared effort to preserve divine blessings in this world and thereby...
Religionsvidenskabeligt Tidsskrift, Sep 11, 2008
Literature and Theology, 2011
Responding to the ethical and performative call of Judith Butler not to propagate the sex- and ge... more Responding to the ethical and performative call of Judith Butler not to propagate the sex- and gender-related violence of the imbedded discourse that we study, this article inquires into the discursive strategies of Jewish scripture by analysing how it orchestrates certain norms of sex and gender and make them serve the overall aim of securing cultural survival. Following this, it traces reflections on persons of ambiguous or indeterminate sex from rabbinic to modern Judaism so as to inquire into the rabbinic dependency on scripture when non-conforming individuals challenge its bipolar sex and gender system. Finally, the article considers if scripture, as suggested by Butler, can play a subversive role in how we attend to non-conforming others today. To do so, the author’s distinction between hermeneutical and artifactual uses of scripture is presented to evaluate the extent to which modern Jews and non-Jews are able to influence their own representations of sex and gender and thus liberate themselves from the normativity implied by scriptural discourse.