Biblical Studies research seminar
Biblical Studies Faculty host weekly research seminars each semester. Postgraduates, faculty, and visiting scholars meet to discuss research on a chosen theme. Papers last between 45 and 60 minutes and are followed by discussion. After seminar, participants and presenters often continue conversation in a local pub.
In Semester 1, the seminar covers Hebrew Bible, Ancient Judaism, New Testament, and Early Christianity. In Semester 2, Hebrew Bible and New Testament Faculty each host their own weekly seminars.
Semester 2 2025-2026
Seminars will take place on Tuesdays from 2:00-3:30pm in College Hall, St Mary’s College. For the reading list and seminar schedule, contact Dr TJ Lang ([email protected]) or Dr Madison Pierce ([email protected]).
This year’s seminar focuses on foundational works of modern NT scholarship. These are works that have defined what we commonly refer to as the ‘discipline’ of NT Studies. As it stands, this anthology of ‘classic works’ remains almost entirely German-speaking and masculine. (This will change in future anthologies of the discipline; how might this change?) Issues of cultural and personal identity should be focal concerns for any history, but they are always intertwined with other macro and micro variables of life: environment, geography, culture, government, technology, economy, war, family, catastrophe, happenstance, and so forth. Modern NT scholars have been at their best when reading the NT in its context, with heighten attentiveness to macro and micro variables. Modern NT scholars are also at their best when reading the history of their discipline with this same attentiveness.
As we read these works, three questions should always be at the forefront of our critical sympathy and scrutiny: What about this seems right? What about this seems wrong? In either case, why?
Seminars will take place on Thursdays from 2:00-3:30pm and will be a mix of in-person (College Hall, St Mary’s College) and online on Microsoft Teams. Contact Dr Madhavi Nevader ([email protected]) for the Teams link.
- 5 February – Zara Zhang (St Andrews) “Inner-biblical Allusion: A New Methodology”
- 12 February – Dr Anna Maia Bortz (Mainz) “Puns, Ambiguities and Rhizomorphic Text Structures in the Book of Hosea”
- 19 February – IBTH Postgraduate Symposium Brainstorming Session
- 26 February – Dr Nina Maksimova and Prof William Tooman (St Andrews) “BiblioBibuli: A Story”
- 5 March – No seminar (Spring Vacation)
- 12 March – Riane McConnell (St Andrews) “In the Law’s Shadow, She Speak”
- 19 March – Tommy Robertson (St Andrews) “Reading the Imago Dei with Animals”
- 26 March – Keith Pinckney (St Andrews) “The Problem of Returning to Egypt: Disintegrating Israelite Ethnic Identity”
- 2 April – Noah Langston, (St Andrews) “Eldritch Abominations, Cosmic Terrors, and the Divine Monster: The Book of Ezekiel in Dialogue with H.P. Lovecraft and Horror Theory”
- 9 April – No seminar (Independent Learning Week)
- 16 April – Emily Page (St Andrews) “The Embodied Self in Proverbs and Egyptian Aspective Art”
- 23 April – Haley Kirkpatrick (St Andrews) “Good Rule in Chronicles: The King as Shepherd”
- 30 April – Prof Caroline Waerzeggers (Leiden) “Babylon After Babel: Babylonia in the Persian and Hellenistic Periods”
For previous seminars, see the Biblical Studies research seminar archive.
