Sociotechnical Assemblages and Biblical Affects: A Response to Scripture and Secularism in Modern Scandinavia and Beyond
In: Biblical InterpretationSearch for other papers by Timothy Beal in
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Abstract
Building on the articles in this special issue and Hannah M. Strømmen’s biblical assemblages framework, this article suggests two key directions for future research on cultural and reception histories of Bible. First, it advocates for deeper investigation into socio-technical dimensions. Within the framework of biblical assemblages, technologies should not be understood simply as tools used by human actors but as assemblages of human and non-human agents embedded within larger assemblages, interacting with other agents to shape cultural meanings and social organizations of power. Second, it calls for increased attention to biblical affects. Analyzing Bibles exclusively as discursive objects, byproducts of language, misses the precognitive, extralinguistic forces of biblical affects that shape individual and collective experiences, relationships, and socio-political organizations. Just as religions come to life and exist as networks of affects, so do Bibles.
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Beal, T. 2011a. The Rise and Fall of the Bible: The Unexpected History of an Accidental Book. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
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Beal, T. 2011b. “Reception History and Beyond: Toward the Cultural History of Scriptures.” Biblical Interpretation 19 (4–5): 357–72. https://doi.org/10.1163/156851511x595530.
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Bylund, L. H. 2023. “The Bibleness of Children’s Bibles: Paratextual and Material Aspects of Nordic Children’s Bibles.” In The Nordic Bible: Bible Reception in Contemporary Nordic Societies (SBR 24), edited by M. Bjelland Kartzow, K. B. Larsen, and O. Lehtipuu, 179–91. Berlin: de Gruyter.
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Connolly, W. E. 2008. Capitalism and Christianity, American Style. Durham: Duke University Press.
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Deleuze, G., and F. Guattari. 1987. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
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Kotrosits, M. 2015. Rethinking Early Christian Identity: Affect, Violence, and Belonging. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
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Latour, B. 1990. “Technology is Society Made Durable.” The Sociological Review 38 (S1): 103–31, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954x.1990.tb03350.x.
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Schaefer, D. O. 2015. Religious Affects: Animality, Evolution, and Power. Durham: Duke University Press.
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Smith, E. 2022. “The Affordances of Bible and the Agency of Material in Assemblage.” The Bible and Critical Theory 18 (1): 1–13.
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Strømmen, Hannah M. 2024. The Bibles of the far Right. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Sociotechnical Assemblages and Biblical Affects: A Response to Scripture and Secularism in Modern Scandinavia and Beyond
In: Biblical InterpretationSearch for other papers by Timothy Beal in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
Building on the articles in this special issue and Hannah M. Strømmen’s biblical assemblages framework, this article suggests two key directions for future research on cultural and reception histories of Bible. First, it advocates for deeper investigation into socio-technical dimensions. Within the framework of biblical assemblages, technologies should not be understood simply as tools used by human actors but as assemblages of human and non-human agents embedded within larger assemblages, interacting with other agents to shape cultural meanings and social organizations of power. Second, it calls for increased attention to biblical affects. Analyzing Bibles exclusively as discursive objects, byproducts of language, misses the precognitive, extralinguistic forces of biblical affects that shape individual and collective experiences, relationships, and socio-political organizations. Just as religions come to life and exist as networks of affects, so do Bibles.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 70 | 70 | 16 |
| Full Text Views | 8 | 8 | 3 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 24 | 24 | 7 |
