Roland Boer's Blog, page 86

From Shanghai to Hung Hom by Train

I have just completed one of the most amazing train journeys I've done so far - from Shanghai to Hung Hom (Hong Kong). I had been in Shanghai planning more translations of my books into Chinese, hitting it off with the editor-in-chief (who looks like an ageing rock star) at VI Horae Press, and planning a stint as visiting professor at Fudan State University through government funds supporting the study of Marxism. But then I had to get to Hong Kong for a conference, and what better way to do so

Revised Program for Bible and Critical Theory Seminar 10-11 July

The Grand Hotel, Newcastle, 10-11 July 2009

Friday 10 July

9.00-9.30 am Registration

9.30-11.00 am

Darren Jorgensen: Simulating the Sacred: Theodore Strehlow's Songs of Central Australia (1971)

Stefan Solomon: Revenant Revelation: Reading the Archive in Carpenter’s Gothic

11.00-11.30 am Morning Tea

11.30am-12.30pm

Keynote: Marion Maddox: Faith in Our Leaders

12.30-2.00pm Lunch

2.00-3.30 pm

Matthew Chrulew: Suspicion and Love

Tamara Prosic: Orthodox Christianity, Utopia and Socialism

3.30-4.00 Afternoon

More slips of the typing finger - Shaghai, Shanghair etc.

They keep flowing from the ends of my fingers - slips of the typing finger:

'I wish to join Guattari and Marx, shoulder to shoulder with Deleuze, peeing over the Bible'. Of course, it was meant to be 'peering'.

I've been looking forward to my visit to Shanghai to see the publisher of Marxist Criticism of the Bible (you can find them here) for a while now and keep writing either Shaghai or Shanghair.

The erotics of the Institute for Marxism-Leninism

During 2008 I read all 50 volumes of Marx and Engels's Collected Works (MECW). I soon realised that the most sensuous and seductive sections came at the end of the preface to each volume. Here one finds the various ‘scientific editors’ – writers of prefaces and notes, compilers of indices, translators and researchers responsible for tracking down the various works by Marx and Engels. They might be connected with Progress Publishers or with the Institute for Marxism-Leninism. And what names!

Natal

From Best in Quality to Bestiality in Lent

Some years ago, when I had to attend weekly chapel services at a college where I once taught, a preacher used the following illustration during a sermon.

It was the first Sunday of Lent, a moment of personal stock-taking, the weighing-up of sins and the means by which one might lesson their burden through some self-denial. But it was also a time to ponder the evils of sin, the contours of seduction, the foul consequences of perpetration. And so he began: once there was a baker who was accustomed

Jim West defends himself against my slander

In a post yesterday I wondered why Jim West kept 'winning' the biblioblog Top 50 - he immediately fired this one back at me (below). I should say the real reason Jim keeps coming at no. 1 spot is that he never sleeps and posts 100 times a day!

And yes, the Calvinist doctrine of total depravity was always my favourite: if we're depraved, then let's celebrate it. That provides God with heaps of real forgiving to do.

Here's Jim, by the way:

Roland has it wrong in his posting today and it’s my Zwinglia

Up 92 places in the Biblioblogs Top 50 due to sex

OK, I know that doesn't quite make sense, but apparently I've moved from 120th (out of over 400) to 28th place in the Biblioblog Top 50 for May (here). Honoured though I am, I think it's a bit dodgy.

1) According to biblioblogs website, the reason I 'bounced back into the Top 50' is because I had 'a liberal number of posts on sex, up 92 places to No. 28'. The catch is that May didn't have too many blogs about sex, except for the eroticism and bicycles one, as well as sexy writers.

2) I don't blog

Six things that really piss me off about journal referees

I've done a fair bit of refereeing in my time, of both articles and book manuscripts, and I have had plenty of articles refereed. I have also been a managing editor of a journal and have had to find referees and farm out articles - not always an easy task to find people who are willing and competent.

So here are the comments and approaches that really piss me off.

1) The Referee with a Grudge. Some bleeding heart has taken a few too many knocks and uses the anonymous review to vent their frustrati

Political Grace arrives on my doorstep

On Friday a nice large box arrived in the hands of a shivering delivery man (why does he insist on wearing shorts in the middle of winter?). The box was from Westminster John Knox and inside was a large stack of freshly published copies of Political Grace: The Revolutionary Theology of John Calvin.

The best part is that it is actually here before Calvin's 500th birthday on 10 July. It won't officially be available until 17 July, but you can pre-order at Amazon USA here or Amazon UK here (where yo

John Calvin's 500th birthday at the Bible and Critical Theory Seminar

The planets must be lining up or something, or perhaps it's providence, but John Calvin's 500th birthday happens to fall in the middle of the Bible and Critical Theory Seminar - 10 July.
Since that will be the day we have our 'conference dinner' - aka piss up- we dedicate the evening to John's big day. After all, it's not every day you turn 500.

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