Amy Cottrill | Reinhardt University (original) (raw)
Books by Amy Cottrill
Westminster John Knox Press, 2021
It is no surprise that the Bible is filled with stories of violence, having come into being throu... more It is no surprise that the Bible is filled with stories of violence, having come into being through the crucible of trauma, cultural conflict, and warfare. But the more obvious acts of physical or sexual violence in the Hebrew Bible often overshadow its subtler forms throughout Scripture and belie the variety of perspectives on violence embedded in biblical narratives. This hinders readers' ability to recognize the full spectrum of human engagement with violence, both in texts and in their lived experiences.
Uncovering Violence: Reading Biblical Narratives as an Ethical Project seeks to provide a theoretical vocabulary for the various forms that violence can take--including textual violence, interpretive violence, moral injury, and slow violence--and to offer a fresh ethical reading of violence in the biblical text. Focusing on four narratives from the Hebrew Bible, Cottrill uses the approach of narrative ethics to lay out the many ways that stories can make moral claims on readers, not by delivering a discrete lesson or takeaway but by making transformative contact with readers and involving them in a more embodied dialogue with the text.
Exploring the narratives of Jael's killing of Sisera, the toxic masculinity of Samson, environmental devastation and failures of legal systems in Ruth, and Abigail's mediation with King David, Uncovering Violence presents strategies for reading that allow for this close encounter. In doing so, it helps prepare readers to better recognize, interpret, and even respond to violence and its many effects within and beyond the text.
Articles by Amy Cottrill
This paper uses affect theory as a tool to interpret the violent images of two stories found in J... more This paper uses affect theory as a tool to interpret the violent images of two stories found in Judges 3-5, those of Ehud and Eglon and that of Jael and Sisera. Affect theory affords biblical exegetes a means to examine the role of the reader's embodiment as a tool for textual interpretation. I use the work of affect theorists to discuss the way vio lent images work on readers and create the emotional, physical, and sensory context in which later violent images will be received and interpreted. The sensation created by exposure to violence is embodied in readers before the readers judge the images accord ing to their moral, ideological, and ethical value. In fact, the embodied affect of expo sure to violence is the context in which that judgment occurs. In Judges, the violated body anchors an experience of vulnerability and fear in the reader. The visceral affect of anxiety and the intensity of bodily violence position the reader to feel the need for secu rity and relief in the figure of the king. This paper focuses on Ehud and Jael as two of the significant early exposures to the violated body in the book of Judges and explores their different contributions to the theme of physical violence. The physical experiences of modern readers may give us valuable insight into how the physical experiences of read ers contribute to the persuasiveness of textual arguments. Affect theory brings into focus the body in the text and the body of the reader as part of meaning-making.
Biblical Reception 1 (2012): 366-384
Chapters in Edited Volumes by Amy Cottrill
Moral Injury: A Guidebook for Understanding and Engagement, edited by Brad E. Kelle, 2020
Title: Reading with Feeling : Affect Theory and the Bible, edited by Jennifer Koosed and Fiona Black, 2019
Teaching the Bible: Practical Strategies for Classroom Instruction, 2005
Lamentations in Ancient and Contemporary Cultural Contexts (eds. Carleen Mandolfo and Nancy Lee; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008
Women's Bible Commentary, 3rd Ed., 2012
Teaching the Bible in the Liberal Arts, Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2012
Book Reviews by Amy Cottrill
Review of Biblical Literature, 2016
Biblical Interpretation, 2012
Both books under review in this essay-Joel S. Burnetts Where is God? D ivine Absence in the Hebre... more Both books under review in this essay-Joel S. Burnetts Where is God? D ivine Absence in the Hebrew Bible and Nancy C. Lee's Lyrics o f Lament: From Tragedy to Transformation-deal with issues related to suffering and the response of human beings to the experience of suffering. Burnetts work focuses on the theme of divine absence in the Hebrew Bible as a whole, a source of anxiety and suffering in the biblical text. Lee's book builds on her previous work in the area of lament, which is one manner of response to the experience of suffering that results from a sense of divine absence. Each author approaches the issue of human suffering from a different vantage point, yet each authors argument reinforces the other's. Both are fine pieces of scholarship, deserving of attention from specialists yet also accessible to interested non-specialists. Burnett begins his book with a description of an irony of the biblical text: though the biblical text is a collection of traditions that reflect the many ways human beings have encountered God, God is rarely actually encountered and more often sought. As Burnett writes, "Scenes of theophany or deliverance, while vivid and pivotal in their importance, are the exception in the Bible" (vii). Most of the time, the characters of the Bible pursue, ask, pray, inquire, and speak about the divine outside of God's actual presence. Indeed, several biblical books deal directly with the subject of God s absence (Lamentations, Job, and many Psalms, for instance). Burnett's goal is to make the absence of God, rather than the presence of God, the lens through which to read the biblical text, put the absent God center stage, and give this major biblical theme its due. Burnett acknowledges that the theme of divine absence is not a new discovery, but rather a familiar theological and interpretive problem that has been addressed by previous scholars. Specifically, Burnett addresses Samuel Terriens book, The Elusive Presence, which is one of the most significant works in the recent past that attempted to interpret the theme of divine absence. Burnett's work builds upon and responds to previous treatments, and also adds new depth to the issue in a number of important ways. Terrien, according to Burnett's construal, generally frames the absence of God positively as an articulation of God's power, mystery, and freedom (2). This interpretation has been developed and balanced by later authors who note the less positive
Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 2016
Memory is of urgent importance in many biblical texts: "If I forget you, 0 Jerusalem, let my righ... more Memory is of urgent importance in many biblical texts: "If I forget you, 0 Jerusalem, let my right hand wither" (Ps 137:5). Rather than examining memoty as an element of theological instruction, Diana Edelman and Ehud Ben Zvi's edited volume offers a methodologically sophisticated investigation into how space and material sites fonction in biblical texts as locations that provide a usable narrative of the past and a vision of the foture. The questions that frame the chapters are "What kinds ofmemories were evoked by specific cities or by their palaces, domestic spaces, walls, cisterns, threshing floors, and the like? In which ways did these memories affect the social mindscape ofthe community?" (p. 3). The volume introduces an important area for scholarly exploration, utilizing methodological insights from the field of memory studies as a lens through which to interpret biblical texts. The book is divided into three parts, each exploring different facets of the topic. The first section, "Opening the Gates," serves as an introduction to the volume. Included in this section are two chapters, the first by Ben Zvi, "An Introduction and Invitation to Join the Conversation about Cities and Memory," and the second by Stephanie Anthonioz, "Cities of Glory and Cities of Pride: Concepts, Gender, and Images of Cities in Mesopotamia and in Ancient Israel." Ben Zvi's essay sets the stage for the book, offering some of the central questions to be explored. Anthonioz's article, though not an introduction to memory studies, introduces the idea of the gendered conceptualization of cities. Though gender is not a prominent theme in the volume, Anthonioz argues that cities are much more than geographical locations؛ through their personification they also serve as sites of memory construction, a cenfral idea of the volume as a whole. The second part of the book, "Crossing the Gates and Entering into the City (of Memory): Memories of Urban Places and Spaces," addresses the role of specific types of urban locations-city gates, domestic spaces, threshing floors, palaces, city gardens and parks, and cisterns and wells-in the formation of biblical memory. The following essays are included in this section: Carey Walsh, "Testing Entry: The Social Functions of City Gates in Biblical Memory"؛ Anne Katrine Gudme, "Inside-Outside: Domestic Living space in Biblical Memory"؛ Francis Landy, "Threshing Floors and Cities"؛ Kâre Berge, "Palaces as Sites of Memory and Their Impact on the Construction of an Elite 'Hybrid' (Local-Global) Cultural Identity in Persian-Period Literature"؛ Edelman, "City Gardens and Parks in Biblical Social Memory"؛ Karolien Vermeulen, "In Defense of the City: Memories of Water in the Persian Period"؛ and Hadi Ghantous and Edelman, "Cisterns and Wells in Biblical Memoty." In different ways, all of these essays address the way specific spaces accrue emotional, symbolic, and cultural meaning that affects how readers understand their past and foture. The third part of the book, "Individual Cities and Social Memory," freats the role of specific cities in the construction of biblical memory.
Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 2020
Biblical Interpretation: A Journal of Contemporary Approaches, 2010
Papers by Amy Cottrill
Reading with Feeling, 2019
Chapter 1: Language and the Creation of Selfhood in the Laments Chapter 2: The Articulate Body: T... more Chapter 1: Language and the Creation of Selfhood in the Laments Chapter 2: The Articulate Body: The Language of Suffering in the Laments Chapter 3: Relational Identity and the Hostile Other: The Negotiation of Competing Voices Chapter 4: Anxious Selfhood: Identity and Agency in the Psalmist/God Relationship Chapter 5: Rhetorical Violence and the Construction of Identity in Psalm 109.
The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 2020
Biblical Interpretation, 2014
This paper uses affect theory as a tool to interpret the violent images of two stories found in J... more This paper uses affect theory as a tool to interpret the violent images of two stories found in Judges 3–5, those of Ehud and Eglon and that of Jael and Sisera. Affect theory affords biblical exegetes a means to examine the role of the reader’s embodiment as a tool for textual interpretation. I use the work of affect theorists to discuss the way violent images work on readers and create the emotional, physical, and sensory context in which later violent images will be received and interpreted. The sensation created by exposure to violence is embodied in readers before the readers judge the images according to their moral, ideological, and ethical value. In fact, the embodied affect of exposure to violence is the context in which that judgment occurs. In Judges, the violated body anchors an experience of vulnerability and fear in the reader. The visceral affect of anxiety and the intensity of bodily violence position the reader to feel the need for security and relief in the figure o...
Westminster John Knox Press, 2021
It is no surprise that the Bible is filled with stories of violence, having come into being throu... more It is no surprise that the Bible is filled with stories of violence, having come into being through the crucible of trauma, cultural conflict, and warfare. But the more obvious acts of physical or sexual violence in the Hebrew Bible often overshadow its subtler forms throughout Scripture and belie the variety of perspectives on violence embedded in biblical narratives. This hinders readers' ability to recognize the full spectrum of human engagement with violence, both in texts and in their lived experiences.
Uncovering Violence: Reading Biblical Narratives as an Ethical Project seeks to provide a theoretical vocabulary for the various forms that violence can take--including textual violence, interpretive violence, moral injury, and slow violence--and to offer a fresh ethical reading of violence in the biblical text. Focusing on four narratives from the Hebrew Bible, Cottrill uses the approach of narrative ethics to lay out the many ways that stories can make moral claims on readers, not by delivering a discrete lesson or takeaway but by making transformative contact with readers and involving them in a more embodied dialogue with the text.
Exploring the narratives of Jael's killing of Sisera, the toxic masculinity of Samson, environmental devastation and failures of legal systems in Ruth, and Abigail's mediation with King David, Uncovering Violence presents strategies for reading that allow for this close encounter. In doing so, it helps prepare readers to better recognize, interpret, and even respond to violence and its many effects within and beyond the text.
This paper uses affect theory as a tool to interpret the violent images of two stories found in J... more This paper uses affect theory as a tool to interpret the violent images of two stories found in Judges 3-5, those of Ehud and Eglon and that of Jael and Sisera. Affect theory affords biblical exegetes a means to examine the role of the reader's embodiment as a tool for textual interpretation. I use the work of affect theorists to discuss the way vio lent images work on readers and create the emotional, physical, and sensory context in which later violent images will be received and interpreted. The sensation created by exposure to violence is embodied in readers before the readers judge the images accord ing to their moral, ideological, and ethical value. In fact, the embodied affect of expo sure to violence is the context in which that judgment occurs. In Judges, the violated body anchors an experience of vulnerability and fear in the reader. The visceral affect of anxiety and the intensity of bodily violence position the reader to feel the need for secu rity and relief in the figure of the king. This paper focuses on Ehud and Jael as two of the significant early exposures to the violated body in the book of Judges and explores their different contributions to the theme of physical violence. The physical experiences of modern readers may give us valuable insight into how the physical experiences of read ers contribute to the persuasiveness of textual arguments. Affect theory brings into focus the body in the text and the body of the reader as part of meaning-making.
Biblical Reception 1 (2012): 366-384
Moral Injury: A Guidebook for Understanding and Engagement, edited by Brad E. Kelle, 2020
Title: Reading with Feeling : Affect Theory and the Bible, edited by Jennifer Koosed and Fiona Black, 2019
Teaching the Bible: Practical Strategies for Classroom Instruction, 2005
Lamentations in Ancient and Contemporary Cultural Contexts (eds. Carleen Mandolfo and Nancy Lee; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008
Women's Bible Commentary, 3rd Ed., 2012
Teaching the Bible in the Liberal Arts, Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2012
Review of Biblical Literature, 2016
Biblical Interpretation, 2012
Both books under review in this essay-Joel S. Burnetts Where is God? D ivine Absence in the Hebre... more Both books under review in this essay-Joel S. Burnetts Where is God? D ivine Absence in the Hebrew Bible and Nancy C. Lee's Lyrics o f Lament: From Tragedy to Transformation-deal with issues related to suffering and the response of human beings to the experience of suffering. Burnetts work focuses on the theme of divine absence in the Hebrew Bible as a whole, a source of anxiety and suffering in the biblical text. Lee's book builds on her previous work in the area of lament, which is one manner of response to the experience of suffering that results from a sense of divine absence. Each author approaches the issue of human suffering from a different vantage point, yet each authors argument reinforces the other's. Both are fine pieces of scholarship, deserving of attention from specialists yet also accessible to interested non-specialists. Burnett begins his book with a description of an irony of the biblical text: though the biblical text is a collection of traditions that reflect the many ways human beings have encountered God, God is rarely actually encountered and more often sought. As Burnett writes, "Scenes of theophany or deliverance, while vivid and pivotal in their importance, are the exception in the Bible" (vii). Most of the time, the characters of the Bible pursue, ask, pray, inquire, and speak about the divine outside of God's actual presence. Indeed, several biblical books deal directly with the subject of God s absence (Lamentations, Job, and many Psalms, for instance). Burnett's goal is to make the absence of God, rather than the presence of God, the lens through which to read the biblical text, put the absent God center stage, and give this major biblical theme its due. Burnett acknowledges that the theme of divine absence is not a new discovery, but rather a familiar theological and interpretive problem that has been addressed by previous scholars. Specifically, Burnett addresses Samuel Terriens book, The Elusive Presence, which is one of the most significant works in the recent past that attempted to interpret the theme of divine absence. Burnett's work builds upon and responds to previous treatments, and also adds new depth to the issue in a number of important ways. Terrien, according to Burnett's construal, generally frames the absence of God positively as an articulation of God's power, mystery, and freedom (2). This interpretation has been developed and balanced by later authors who note the less positive
Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 2016
Memory is of urgent importance in many biblical texts: "If I forget you, 0 Jerusalem, let my righ... more Memory is of urgent importance in many biblical texts: "If I forget you, 0 Jerusalem, let my right hand wither" (Ps 137:5). Rather than examining memoty as an element of theological instruction, Diana Edelman and Ehud Ben Zvi's edited volume offers a methodologically sophisticated investigation into how space and material sites fonction in biblical texts as locations that provide a usable narrative of the past and a vision of the foture. The questions that frame the chapters are "What kinds ofmemories were evoked by specific cities or by their palaces, domestic spaces, walls, cisterns, threshing floors, and the like? In which ways did these memories affect the social mindscape ofthe community?" (p. 3). The volume introduces an important area for scholarly exploration, utilizing methodological insights from the field of memory studies as a lens through which to interpret biblical texts. The book is divided into three parts, each exploring different facets of the topic. The first section, "Opening the Gates," serves as an introduction to the volume. Included in this section are two chapters, the first by Ben Zvi, "An Introduction and Invitation to Join the Conversation about Cities and Memory," and the second by Stephanie Anthonioz, "Cities of Glory and Cities of Pride: Concepts, Gender, and Images of Cities in Mesopotamia and in Ancient Israel." Ben Zvi's essay sets the stage for the book, offering some of the central questions to be explored. Anthonioz's article, though not an introduction to memory studies, introduces the idea of the gendered conceptualization of cities. Though gender is not a prominent theme in the volume, Anthonioz argues that cities are much more than geographical locations؛ through their personification they also serve as sites of memory construction, a cenfral idea of the volume as a whole. The second part of the book, "Crossing the Gates and Entering into the City (of Memory): Memories of Urban Places and Spaces," addresses the role of specific types of urban locations-city gates, domestic spaces, threshing floors, palaces, city gardens and parks, and cisterns and wells-in the formation of biblical memory. The following essays are included in this section: Carey Walsh, "Testing Entry: The Social Functions of City Gates in Biblical Memory"؛ Anne Katrine Gudme, "Inside-Outside: Domestic Living space in Biblical Memory"؛ Francis Landy, "Threshing Floors and Cities"؛ Kâre Berge, "Palaces as Sites of Memory and Their Impact on the Construction of an Elite 'Hybrid' (Local-Global) Cultural Identity in Persian-Period Literature"؛ Edelman, "City Gardens and Parks in Biblical Social Memory"؛ Karolien Vermeulen, "In Defense of the City: Memories of Water in the Persian Period"؛ and Hadi Ghantous and Edelman, "Cisterns and Wells in Biblical Memoty." In different ways, all of these essays address the way specific spaces accrue emotional, symbolic, and cultural meaning that affects how readers understand their past and foture. The third part of the book, "Individual Cities and Social Memory," freats the role of specific cities in the construction of biblical memory.
Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 2020
Biblical Interpretation: A Journal of Contemporary Approaches, 2010
Reading with Feeling, 2019
Chapter 1: Language and the Creation of Selfhood in the Laments Chapter 2: The Articulate Body: T... more Chapter 1: Language and the Creation of Selfhood in the Laments Chapter 2: The Articulate Body: The Language of Suffering in the Laments Chapter 3: Relational Identity and the Hostile Other: The Negotiation of Competing Voices Chapter 4: Anxious Selfhood: Identity and Agency in the Psalmist/God Relationship Chapter 5: Rhetorical Violence and the Construction of Identity in Psalm 109.
The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 2020
Biblical Interpretation, 2014
This paper uses affect theory as a tool to interpret the violent images of two stories found in J... more This paper uses affect theory as a tool to interpret the violent images of two stories found in Judges 3–5, those of Ehud and Eglon and that of Jael and Sisera. Affect theory affords biblical exegetes a means to examine the role of the reader’s embodiment as a tool for textual interpretation. I use the work of affect theorists to discuss the way violent images work on readers and create the emotional, physical, and sensory context in which later violent images will be received and interpreted. The sensation created by exposure to violence is embodied in readers before the readers judge the images according to their moral, ideological, and ethical value. In fact, the embodied affect of exposure to violence is the context in which that judgment occurs. In Judges, the violated body anchors an experience of vulnerability and fear in the reader. The visceral affect of anxiety and the intensity of bodily violence position the reader to feel the need for security and relief in the figure o...
Biblical Interpretation, 2010
Biblical Interpretation, 2012