Tue 30 Nov 2010
Blogger and Online Publication Session at the SBL Annual Meeting
Posted by Francis Deblauwe under blogs , meetings , publishing , scholarly communications1 Comment
The recent Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) Annual Meeting in Atlanta had a new Blogger and Online Publication session (November 22, 2010). It was actually one of the best attended sessions! The academic biblical blogosphere and online world, even though they are more the domain of linguists and historians than archaeologists, provide interesting comparative material and ideas. Here are the titles, web links, and audio (on the Targuman blog):
- Robert R. Cargill (UCLA), “Introductory Remarks for the Inaugural Blogger and Online Publication Session at the 2010 Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting.”
- James Davila (University of St. Andrews, Scotland), “What Just Happened: The Rise of “Biblioblogging” in the First Decade of the Twenty-first Century.” — audio
- Christian Brady (Penn State University), “Online Biblical Studies: Past, Present, Promise, and Peril.” — audio
- Michael Barber (John Paul the Great Catholic University, San Diego), “Weblogs and the Academy: The Benefits and Challenges of Biblioblogging.” — audio
- James McGrath (Butler University, Indianapolis), “The Blogging Revolution: New Technologies and their Impact on How we do Scholarship.” — audio
- Robert R. Cargill (UCLA), “Instruction, Research, and the Future of Online Educational Technologies.” — audio
- Scott Bailey, “The SBL 2010 Experience,” in Scotterology
- Jared Calaway, “On Blogging the SBL on Blogging,” in Antiquitopia
- Edward Cook, “Scenes and Observations from SBL Atlanta 2010,” in Ralph the Sacred River
- Jim Davila, “Random SBL 2010 Reflections and Links,” in PaleoJudaica
- Dean Galbraith, “Biblical Studies Carnival ?? (November 2010),” in Religion Bulletin
- Mark Goodacre, “SBL Atlanta 2010, Monday, #SBL10,” in NT Blog
- Christopher Heard, “Online publishing needs peer review,” in Higgaion
- Bill Heroman, “#SBL10 Highlights,” in NT/History Blog
- John Hobbins, “Why web publishing is ten times better than dead tree publishing,” in Ancient Hebrew Poetry
- John Hobbins, “Peer Reviewed Online Publication: A Response to Chris Brady,” in Ancient Hebrew Poetry
- Mark Hoffman, “Reporting from SBL – Blogger and Online Publication Section,” in Biblical Studies and Technological Tools
- J.R. Daniel Kirk, “SBL: Day 4 and 4.5,” in Storied Theology
- James F. McGrath, “Bloggership: The #SBL10 Session on Blogging and Online Publication,” in Exploring Our Matrix
- Joel L. Watts, “Two of the Biblioblogging Papers Presented at #SBL10,” in Unsettled Christianity
- Joel L. Watts, “More thoughts on the #SBL10 Biblioblogging Section,” in Unsettled Christianity
Last but not least, a few more fun contributions:
- Chris Brady, “Bibliobloggers at the trough,” in Targuman
- Steve Douglas, “My night out with the bibliobloggers,” in Undeception
- James F. McGrath, “Two Pictures of Me #SBL10,” in Exploring Our matrix
- Jeremy Thompson, “Jim’s real theme song & the biblioblog rankings for November,” in Free Old Testament Audio Website Blog
It sure seems that “bibliobloggers” are a very active and numerous (see Jeremy Thompson above) group, full of ideas. Is it just me or are they more so than “archaeobloggers“? It could have something to do with the former’s field’s history of popularization and sermonizing which lends itself easily to blogging. They are maybe a little less locked up in their ivory towers? Of course, there are so many more of them compared with us (dwindling?) archaeologists… There were even organized blogger lunches and dinners at the meeting (pics on Targuman). By the way, the SBL meeting is nowadays no longer organized together with the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR; archaeological association with a focus on Israel/Palestine and region). They are still organized in the same city but subsequently rather than concurrently. One ironic fact: the hotel where the meeting took place didn’t have decent wi-fi thus prohibiting prompt blogging of the meeting (the wi-fi that was available although not necessarily usable was charged by the day and by device!).
Finally, there was also a related seminar organized by our good friend Chuck Jones (NYU), entitled E-Publish or Perish. I’m sorry but I didn’t track down all the relevant blog posts… I’ll just give you one:
- Mark Hoffman, “Reporting from SBL – E-Publish or Perish,” in Biblical Studies and Technological Tools
December 2nd, 2010 at 6:37 am
Thanks so much for posting this wonderful article piece on the intersection between theology and social networking.
It is wonderful to see the ‘groundswell’ of user generated participation in theological discourse.
I recently served as the Social Networking manager for the Third Lausanne Congress in Cape Town. We developed a strategy that would allow the centralised value of high quality input (expert speakers, discussions, panels and presenters) to be filtered out of the congress among a much wider audience (hundreds of thousands of interested persons across the world). Our twitter and facebook pages currently have about 12000 active users, many of whom are neither professional theologians or Church / Ministry leaders. Yet, their contexts, perspectives, and insights are incredible valuable to both the scholarly pursuit of theology and the strategic outcomes of research.
I am pleased that the SBL has seen the emergence of a ‘user developed’ blogging community. It means that the conversation is broadened and deepened in the process.
You can read about the Lausanne Blogger Network here: http://www.lausanne.org/lausanne-blog/blogger-network.html
You may also be interested to read the paper that I wrote on this phenomenon for Lausanne here:
http://www.lausanneworldpulse.com/themedarticles.php/1297/06-2010
Best regards from Cape Town,
Dion