 |
LITERATURE
HUMANITIES
HAM 407, TR 4:10-6:00 |
|
Literature Humanities: Paper # 3 (8p)
Instructions: Write an 8 page paper on one of the 7 topics below. The
paper is due Friday Dec. 14 at the latest (the day of the exam, and not, as
earlier indicated on the syllabus, Dec. 10). This is not a close reading of
a particular passage, but you should make ample reference to the text and
analyze your quotations rhetorically, basing your paper on an in-depth reading
of the entire text. Try to argue a case, or position, but without oversimplifying,
or neglecting contrary evidence which might nuance your understanding of the
question.
1. Discuss the idea of “exile” in Genesis. Who is exiled? To where? From where? For what reason? Is exile the sign of a curse or of election? Is it a punishment or a trial? Who or what is purified through exile? Is it a special condition or a normative state? Explore some of these issues (focusing on the aspect that interests you most) by referring to the expulsion from Eden and at least two other stories.
2. Examine the “sexual politics” of Genesis through a reading of the episodes that illustrate an “aberrant” sexuality: Lot and his daughters, Sodom and Gomorrah, Judah and Tamar, and Dinah. In this book of generation, how is reproduction to be regulated, and for what reason? What constitutes a normative model? How does human procreation relate to (or differ from) the divine creation?
3. Examine the cases of sibling rivalry in Genesis. Why do they come about? How are they resolved? How does this recurrent conflict both threaten and derive from the concern with continuity between generations? Is a permanent solution to the cycle ever found? How does Joseph’s story differ?
4. Look at the issues of theophany and mediation in Exodus. How does God reveal Himself, and what problems confront Him in this task? What is the relation between the ban on idolatry and the resort to human mediators? What role does the “face” (cf. 3:6, 10:28, 19:21, 33:18-23, 34:29) play in the revelation of this non-anthropomorphic deity?
5. If Exodus tells the story of the journey from slavery to freedom, from Egypt to the Promised Land, how is this voyage accomplished? What religious and political transformations must take place among the Israelites? How does a mutual, two-way interaction between them and God (via tests, revelations, laws, etc.) serve to build a relationship that transforms the community?
6. Discuss the importance of verbal action (speech acts) in Job. From the temptation to curse God (1:11) to Elihu’s injunction to “extol his work” (36:24), our relation to God is defined in verbal terms. Sin is conceived as an act of the “lips” (2:10), and Job’s wisdom after God’s theophany consists in laying his “hand on [his] mouth” (40:4). How does the book confirm or undermine the centrality of language to ethical action? How do descriptions of words as windy and vain, or, on the contrary, as weighty and durable, indeed written down (19:23-25 and 31:35), affect our understanding of the role of verbal action?
7. Examine Job’s use of legal rhetoric to justify himself and to request a “day in court” before his accuser. What are the strengths and weaknesses of this approach? Is man’s relationship to God a legal one—as the covenant tradition of Genesis and Exodus suggests—or is justice a merely human affair? How does the theophany work to complicate either position?