Tag Archives: CSTT annual meeting

CSTT Annual Meeting 2018 on “Authority and Change” at Lammi

The CSTT 2018 Annual Meeting took place 8.-11. February at the Lammi Biological Station. The special theme Authority and Change was approached from different angles by the keynote speakers Joanna Töyräänvuori, Shana Zaia, Christoph Levin, and George Brooke. We also heard two interesting panels dealing with the definition of authority and the usage of edited texts in reconstructing history.

Most of the hands-on work took place in smaller workshops, bringing the CSTT teams together in different combinations. This way of working produced exciting new ideas and opportunities for collaboration between scholars dealing with different kinds of source materials.

The following pictures hopefully illuminate some of the exciting and fruitful moments in the snowy Lammi.

CSTT group photo with the beautiful Finnish winter milieu (photo by Lauri Laine).

The presentation by Tuukka Kauhanen, dealing with different levels of history that can be gleaned through edited texts (photo by Lauri Laine).
Participants at the CSTT Annual Meeting 2018 (photo by Lauri Laine).
One of the smaller workshops: teams 2 and 3 discussing text-critical cases (photo by Ville Mäkipelto).
The happy panel “What is Authority” with Jutta Jokiranta, Anneli Aejmelaeus, Martti Nissinen, Francis Borchardt, and Jason Silverman (photo by Ville Mäkipelto).
The concluding panel with the CSTT scientific advisory board members Kristin De Troyer and George Brooke, as well as Christoph Levin and our leader Martti Nissinen (photo by Lauri Laine).
Last moments (photo by Lauri Laine).

CSTT Annual Meeting “Tradition” (10-13 May, Tvärminne)

Location: Tvärminne, May 10-13, 2017

Wednesday, May 10

4:00 – 5:00pm: Jessi Orpana, Plenary Session on Defining ‘Tradition’

Session 1 (Keynote 1)
5:00 – 7:00pm: Eva Mroczek (UC Davis)
“Censored and Salvaged: Theories of Scriptural Survival in Ancient Judaism and Christianity”
[Responses by four teams with discussion, moderated by Jutta Jokiranta, Helen Dixon, Ville Mäkipelto, and Miika Tucker]

7:00 – 8:00pm: Dinner

Thursday, May 11

Session 2: (Keynote 2; Chair Katja Kujanpää)
9:00 – 11:30pm: Seth Sanders (UC Davis)
“Memory Without History, Art Without Intention: The Unique Problem of Pentateuchal Tradition” [Reinhard Müller and Hanna Tervanotko, respondents]

12:00 – 1:00pm: Lunch

Session 3: Scribes and Other Cultural Transmitters
1:00-2:00pm: Martti Nissinen, “CSTT Seen through Scribal Culture” (discussion)
2:00-3:00pm: Raija Mattila, “Your First Day at School (in Mesopotamia)” (workshop)

3:00 – 3:30pm: Coffee break

Session 4: Ritual (Chair Tero Alstola)
3:30-4:15pm: Gina Konstantopoulos, “Tradition and Transmission in Mesopotamian Incantations” [Timo Tekoniemi, respondent]
4:15-5:00pm: Jutta Jokiranta“Transmission of Traditions in Rituals from Cognitive Science of Religion Perspective” [Ville Mäkipelto, respondent]
5:00-6:00pm: Helen Dixon, Ritual workshop – title TBD

6:00 – 7:00pm: Dinner

Friday, May 12

Session 5
9:30-10:30am: Jason Silverman, “Amateur Anthropology of Foreign Traditions” (workshop)
10:30-11:30am: Isaak de Hulster, “Female Form: Generally Human, Traditional, or Contextual?” (workshop)

11:30 – 11.45am: CSTT photo (Ville)

11:45am – 12:45pm: Lunch

Session 6: Gender (Chair Hanna Tervanotko)
12:45 – 1:30pm: Jessica Keady, “Troubling the Purity Tradition: The Positions of Idealism, Impurity, and Masculinities in the Dead Sea Scrolls” [Jessi Orpana, respondent]
1:30 – 3:00pm: Saana Svärd and Hanna Tervanotko, “CSTT, Gender, and Tradition” workshop [with Anneli Aejmelaeus, Francis Borchardt, and Rick Bonnie; Eva Mroczek and Seth Sanders, respondents]

3:00 – 5:00pm: Afternoon break

Session 7 (Chair Mika Pajunen)
5:00 – 6:00pm: Joanna Töyräänvuori, “Tradition and Modernity in Light of the Linear Theory of Social Change” (workshop)
6:00 – 7:00pm: Elisa Uusimäki, Panel discussion on postdoc projects

7:00 – 8:30pm: Dinner

Saturday, May 13

9:00 – 10:00am: Ville Mäkipelto, Blogging workshop

10:00 – 12:00pm: Session 8: Wrap Up
– Reflections by Helen Dixon, Christoph Levin, Eva Mroczek, Seth Sanders, and Martti Nissinen
– Team reports and plans + CSTT meetings discussions

12:00 – 1:00pm: Lunch and check out

CSTT Annual Meeting 2016: How about changing scholarship?

[See also the CSTT annual meeting photo impression]

By Jutta Jokiranta

CSTT gathered to its third Annual Meeting in Saariselkä, 7-10 April 2016, titled “Change‽”. Before the meeting, participants were asked to pair up with a member from another team and reflect on their research concerning their understanding of change, the levels on which they study change, reasons for change, possibilities to distinguish change from diversity, and changes in scholarship that influence their perception and use of the source materials. This communication task gave an impetus to think of change in terms of agency and how those agencies relate to power and ideology, practice and action, language and symbolism, and production of material culture and media by which all performance, interpretation and politics takes place. The exercise demonstrated how central the communication between the study of material culture and textual studies is in CSTT and how CSTT aims at constructing the bigger picture in this cooperation and interdisciplinary endeavour. Continue reading CSTT Annual Meeting 2016: How about changing scholarship?