Beyond the Beyond: A Wolfson Conference

This is an update and reminder that Rice is hosting a conference on October 26, 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m., Kyle Morrow Room, Fondren Library, Rice University.

VENTURING BEYOND THE BEYOND
On the Visual Imagination and Mystical Hermeneutics of Elliot R. Wolfson

Description
Bringing together a panel of distinguished scholars, this symposium will take Elliot R. Wolfson's groundbreaking writings on Jewish mysticism and his related paintings and poetry as points of departure for lectures focused on the reenvisioning of embodiment, time, beauty, ritual practice, angelic presence, and issues of transgression, law and honesty.

Lecturers
Daniel Boyarin, University of California, Berkley
Marcia Brennan, Rice University
Virginia Burrus, Drew University
April D. DeConick, Rice University
Gregory Kaplan, Rice University
Jeffrey J. Kripal, Rice University
Steven M. Wasserstrom, Reed College
Elliot R. Wolfson, New York University
Edith Wyschogrod, Rice University

Sponsors
The Humanities Research Center at Rice University, The Stanford and Joan Alexander Foundation, and the Religious Studies Department at Rice University.

I don't know what other lecturers are doing, but I will be speaking about the Gospel of Judas as a subversive ancient Gnostic gospel, one that transgresses the mainstream in terms of hermeneutics and visual imagination in order to challenge and critic the mainstream. I will also address how this text has been received by scholars in the modern world, and how its transgressive message has been subverted and buried through modern translation and interpretation.

My still tentative title (since I still have to sit down and write this lecture yet):
THE GNOSTIC AS THE TRANSGRESSIVE

The Gospel of Judas and Subversion in Antiquity and Today

Please join us for part or all of the conference if you can!