Sacred Other

Abstract

The American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) conference, held on 23-26 March 2006 at Princeton University, featured over 120 panels, each with about three presenters. The theme of the conference, “The Human and Its Other,” inspired a broad spectrum of imaginative considerations of this fascinating topic. The field of comparative literature specializes in interdisciplinary work that crosses the boundaries of language, nationality, culture, historical period, and religion by examining the common ground shared by creative works. The conference doubled its size of previous years to 1,200 participants from around the world. This year it included a reading by Joyce Carol Oates, a conversation with Nobel prize winner Toni Morrison, a performance by the American Ballet Theater dancers, and a talk on human rights by noted postcolonial theorist Gayatri Spivak. The ACLAconference uses a two- and three-panel series format to structure panels, thereby allowing panelists in each series to dialogue over a two- or three-day period. One of the three-panel series, “Sacred Other: Boundaries and Pores in the Tanakh, New Testament, and Qur’an as Literary Works,” focused on the three sacred texts as literary works. Chaired by Roberta Sabbath (University of Nevada, Las Vegas), the panel topic continued her three-year project of chairing similar panels at major literary conferences in the United States. The topic enables a dialogue between scholars primarily from the fields of literary and religious studies. A variety of literary theoretical lenses enlisted by participants enriched the understanding of the sacred texts themselves and their vast influence on cultural production. Panelists stretched the word otherness to include a variety of meanings. The survey of topics below reflects the depth of the conversation. While religious, social, and cultural institutional practices encourage thinking about the many levels of human experience in terms of an inclusive/exclusive sensibility, these panelists made no such distinction. While labels define individuals in society, papers in this panel series fractured stereotypical thinking. While labels also limit the understanding of the human experience of spirituality, alienation, emotion, influence, and community, these panelists exploded the myth that any of these human experiences adhered to boundaries or limitations. On the contrary, the porous nature of life at the material ...