Congratulations to Summer Satushek!
Summer (MAIS, Comparative Religion) was awarded the Samuel and Althea Stroum Fellowship. The 2014-15 class of Stroum fellows will consist six fellows, the most ever for this relatively new program. These scholars “demonstrate particular strength[s] in languages and literatures. The students range from masters-level and early PhD-degree students, to advanced PhD candidates who are currently writing their dissertations. This difference in stages of graduate study allows for valuable peer-to-peer mentorship within the program. Click here for more on the Stroum Fellows.
Congratulations to Eric Scherbenske!
(M.A. 2001, Comparative Religion/Williams; Ph.D. 2009, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) who has received the 2014 biennial North American Patristics Society Best First Book Award for his book, Canonizing Paul: Ancient Editorial Practice and the Corpus Paulinum (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).
By exploring the role of editorial practices on the exegetical reception of Paul’s letters, Canonizing Paul attempted to answer the simple question: what is an early Christian manuscript beyond simply a transmitter of a text? Specifically, it investigated how editorial practices utilized in the ancient publication of a body of works (e.g. preparation of texts, selection and arrangement of tracts, and composition and deployment of paratexts) shaped editions, and thus the interpretation of Paul’s letters. By demonstrating how these practices left their mark on these editions of Paul, Canonizing Paul argued that editorial practices and hermeneutics were deeply, sometimes inextricably, intertwined.
Eric is currently researching and writing his second monograph entitled, Origen, Scholia, and Scripture in the Late Ancient Archetype of Codex von der Goltz (Gregory-Aland 1739) which continues to investigate the fundamental question posed in Canonizing Paul. This monograph examines the tenth-century manuscript, Codex von der Goltz, which was circumscribed by marginal notes (wherein Origen figured prominently) and was transmitted from an archetype produced in the late fourth/early fifth-century (when Origen’s reputation was being vigorously attacked and defended). This second book explores how a manuscript could be produced and circumscribed with marginalia in order to engage with heresiological discourse and attempt to rehabilitate the increasingly-maligned legacy of the brilliant, but divisive, theologian Origen.