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 Humanand Its Other,” inspired a broad spectrum of imaginative considerations ofthis fascinating topic. The field of comparative literature specializes in interdisciplinarywork that crosses the boundaries of language, nationality, culture,historical period, and religion by examining the common groundshared by creative works.The conference doubled its size of previous years to 1,200 participantsfrom around the world. This year it included a reading by Joyce Carol Oates,a conversation with Nobel prize winner Toni Morrison, a performance bythe American Ballet Theater dancers, and a talk on human rights by notedpostcolonial theorist Gayatri Spivak. The ACLAconference uses a two- andthree-panel series format to structure panels, thereby allowing panelists ineach series to dialogue over a two- or three-day period.One of the three-panel series, “Sacred Other: Boundaries and Pores inthe Tanakh, New Testament, and Qur’an as Literary Works,” focused on thethree sacred texts as literary works. Chaired by Roberta Sabbath (Universityof Nevada, Las Vegas), the panel topic continued her three-year project ofchairing similar panels at major literary conferences in the United States.The topic enables a dialogue between scholars primarily from the fields ofliterary and religious studies. A variety of literary theoretical lenses enlistedby participants enriched the understanding of the sacred texts themselvesand 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 aboutthe many levels of human experience in terms of an inclusive/exclusive sensibility,these panelists made no such distinction. While labels define individualsin 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 panelistsexploded the myth that any of these human experiences adhered to boundariesor limitations. On the contrary, the porous nature of life at the material ...