Reception Histories

In his earlier Rhetorical Power, Steven Mailloux presented an innovative and challenging strategy for combining critical theory and cultural studies. That book has stimulated wide-ranging discussion and debate among diverse audiences—students and specialists in American studies, speech communications, rhetoric/composition, law, education, biblical studies, and especially literary theory and cultural criticism. Reception Histories marks a further development of Mailloux's influential critical project, as he demonstrates how rhetorical hermeneutics uses rhetoric to practice theory by doing history. Reception Histories works out in detail what rhetorical hermeneutics means in terms of poststructuralist theory (Part One), nineteenth-century U.S. cultural studies (Part Two), and the contemporary history of curricular reform within the so-called Culture Wars (Part Three). Mailloux situates, defends, and elaborates the theory he first proposed in Rhetorical Power, and he exemplifies it with a new series of provocative reception histories. He also both critiques and reconceptualizes the version of reader response criticism he developed in his first book, Interpretive Conventions. Throughout Reception Histories, Mailloux demonstrates his distinctive blend of neopragmatism and cultural rhetoric study. By tracing the rhetorical paths of thought, this book offers a new way to read the current volatile debates over higher education and contributes its own original proposals for shaping the future of the humanities.

How do we begin to carry out such a vast task-the examination of three millennia of diverse uses and influences of the biblical texts? Where can the interested scholar find information on methods and techniques applicable to the many and varied ways in which these have happened? Through a series of examples of reception history practitioners at work and of their reflections this volume sets the agenda for biblical reception, as it begins to chart the near-infinite series of complex interpretive 'events' that have been generated by the journey of the biblical texts down through the centuries. The chapters consider aspects as diverse as political and economic factors, cultural location, the discipline of Biblical Studies, and the impact of scholarly preconceptions, upon reception history. Topics covered include biblical figures and concepts, contemporary music, paintings, children's Bibles, and interpreters as diverse as Calvin, Lenin, and Nick Cave.

In recent decades, reception history has become an increasingly important and controversial topic of discussion in biblical studies. Rather than attempting to recover the original meaning of biblical texts, reception history focuses on exploring the history of interpretation. In doing so it locates the dominant historical-critical scholarly paradigm within the history of interpretation, rather than over and above it. At the same time, the breadth of material and hermeneutical issues that reception history engages with questions any narrow understanding of the history of the Bible and its effects on faith communities. The challenge that reception history faces is to explore tradition without either reducing its meaning to what faith communities think is important, or merely offering anthologies of interesting historical interpretations. This major new handbook addresses these matters by presenting reception history as an enterprise (not a method) that questions and understands tradition afresh. The Oxford Handbook of the Reception History of the Bible consciously allows for the interplay of the traditional and the new through a two-part structure. Part I comprises a set of essays surveying the outline, form, and content of twelve key biblical books that have been influential in the history of interpretation. Part II offers a series of in-depth case studies of the interpretation of particular key biblical passages or books with due regard for the specificity of their social, cultural or aesthetic context. These case studies span two millennia of interpretation by readers with widely differing perspectives. Some are at the level of a group response (from Gnostic readings of Genesis, to Post-Holocaust Jewish interpretations of Job); others examine individual approaches to texts (such as Augustine and Pelagius on Romans, or Gandhi on the Sermon on the Mount). Several chapters examine historical moments, such as the 1860 debate over Genesis and evolution, while others look to wider themes such as non-violence or millenarianism. Further chapters study in detail the works of popular figures who have used the Bible to provide inspiration for their creativity, from Dante and Handel, to Bob Dylan and Dan Brown.

The Bible, Gender, and Reception History: The Case of Job's Wife investigates the fleeting appearance in the Bible of Job's wife and its impact on the imaginations of readers throughout history. It begins by presenting key interpretive gaps in the biblical text concerning Job and his wife, explaining the way gender studies offers guiding principles with which the author engages a reception history of their marriage. After analyzing Job and his wife within medieval Christian theology of Eden, the author identifies ways in which Job's wife visually aligns with medieval images of Satan. The volume explores portrayals of Job and his wife in publications on marriage and gender roles in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, moving onto an investigation of William Blake's sharp artistic divergence from the common tradition in his representation of Job's wife as a shrew. In the exploration of societal portrayals of Job and his Wife throughout history, this book discovers how arguments about marriage intertwine with not only gender roles, but also, with political, social, and historical movements.

Essay from the year 2015 in the subject Cultural Studies - European Studies, grade: 8.5, Tilburg University (Liberal Arts and Sciences), course: The Impact of Colonialism on 19th-century European Culture, language: English, abstract: The colonialism of the 19th century has not only been the consequence and reason for the rapid industrialization, urbanization, socio-political and cultural changes, but also invoked a change in a way people would perceive the world around them. In other words, it is important to discuss how reception history entered people’s lives: its notion is important in itself not only as a concept, but “as a method to investigate the dynamics of what is being ‘read’ in selected products from another culture.” The paper will investigate the history of the swastika since its European discovery in the 19th century, how it was perceived then and now and what impact it had on the European society.

Reception introduces students and academics alike to the study of the way in which texts are received by readers, viewers, and audiences. Organized conceptually and thematically, this book provides a much-needed overview of the field, drawing on work in literary and cultural studies as well as Classics, Biblical studies, medievalism, and the media history of the book. It provides new ways of understanding and configuring the relationships between the various terminologies and theories that comprise reception study, and suggests potential ways forward for study and research in the light of such new configurations. Written in a clear and accessible style, this is the ideal introduction to the study of reception.

This book deals with the popular reception of early Italian television, during the years of the so-called "lungo miracolo" (1954-1969). To do so, the author focuses on the Catholic and Communist audiences' perception of the first TV programs.