{"id":81,"date":"2012-01-25T19:05:51","date_gmt":"2012-01-25T19:05:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/uncategorized\/a-conversation-about-sacred-trash\/"},"modified":"2015-08-19T14:55:58","modified_gmt":"2015-08-19T14:55:58","slug":"a-conversation-about-sacred-trash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/25\/a-conversation-about-sacred-trash\/","title":{"rendered":"A Conversation About Sacred Trash – 24 January 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the wonderful things about the University of Iowa is the variety of fascinating guests which it attracts to this little corner of the Midwest. Yesterday afternoon we were host to\u00a0Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole<\/a>, authors whose most recent work,\u00a0Sacred Trash<\/a><\/em>, explores the story of the scholarly rediscovery and exploration of one of our most important sources for the history of Mediterranean Judaism: the Cairo Genizah.<\/p>\n

How the Genizah came to be discovered by Western scholars, and the subsequent transportation of the bulk of its many thousands of documents to Cambridge University<\/a>, is a tale known at least in outline to many medieval scholars. Hoffman and Cole’s recounting of it was distinguished by verve and good humour, and by the new perspectives which they were able to bring to the topic as non-academics who had nonetheless thought deeply about issues of translation, identity, history and poetry.<\/p>\n

Indeed for me, their discussion of their writing process\u2014how they chose to structure their work, the somewhat serendipitous process by which they made connections or were introduced to people who were unexpected founts of knowledge\u2014was one of the most interesting part of the two hours for me. Their emphasis on the pleasure to be found\u2014which should<\/em>\u00a0be found\u2014in scholarly writing for both author and reader was a welcome reminder of one of the key things I should keep in mind as I begin the process of writing my dissertation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the wonderful things about the University of Iowa is the variety of fascinating guests which it attracts to this little corner of the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conferences-lectures"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":472,"url":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/03\/berman-symposium\/","url_meta":{"origin":81,"position":0},"title":"CfP: Cistercians, Chronologies, and Communities Symposium","author":"admin","date":"November 3, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Cistercians, Chronologies, and Communities: The Legacies of Constance Hoffman Berman May 20-21, 2016 Students, friends and colleagues of Professor Constance H. Berman are invited to honor and celebrate her career at a symposium to be held on Friday and Saturday, May 20-21, 2016 in Iowa City. The theme of this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Conferences & Lectures"","block_context":{"text":"Conferences & Lectures","link":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/category\/conferences-lectures\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"022306constance-berman-hirez","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/022306constance-berman-hirez-200x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":74,"url":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/2012\/08\/28\/hastac\/","url_meta":{"origin":81,"position":1},"title":"HASTAC and the Digital Humanities","author":"Yvonne Seale","date":"August 28, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm really pleased to be one of this year's HASTAC (Humanities, Art, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory) Scholars at the University of Iowa, working in conjunction with UI's Digital Studio for Public Humanities and the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies. HASTAC is a digital initiative, an online community of scholars\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Digital Humanities"","block_context":{"text":"Digital Humanities","link":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/category\/digital-humanities\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":715,"url":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/2016\/04\/26\/time-for-some-thank-yous\/","url_meta":{"origin":81,"position":2},"title":"Time for Some Thank Yous","author":"admin","date":"April 26, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Dissertations are read by comparatively few people, in the grand scheme of things\u2014certainly by far fewer people than helped me towards the completion of mine. Doctoral research has deep roots; those of my own work stretch back not just through my years at the University of Iowa, but back to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Research"","block_context":{"text":"Research","link":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/category\/research\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Screen-Shot-2016-04-26-at-20.22.46.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Screen-Shot-2016-04-26-at-20.22.46.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Screen-Shot-2016-04-26-at-20.22.46.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Screen-Shot-2016-04-26-at-20.22.46.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Screen-Shot-2016-04-26-at-20.22.46.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":46,"url":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/11\/kalamazoo-2014\/","url_meta":{"origin":81,"position":3},"title":"Kalamazoo 2014","author":"Yvonne Seale","date":"May 11, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm home safe from this year's Congress, though we were flanked by some pretty spectacular lightning through much of the drive back through western Illinois and into Iowa. There's probably some way for such an epic journey to be connected to a medieval pilgrimage, but it's going to take me\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Conferences & Lectures"","block_context":{"text":"Conferences & Lectures","link":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/category\/conferences-lectures\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"6a013486c64e2e970c01a3fd057012970b","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/6a013486c64e2e970c01a3fd057012970b-300x201.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":637,"url":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/26\/dh-palaeography\/","url_meta":{"origin":81,"position":4},"title":"A Beginner’s Guide to Digital Palaeography of Medieval Manuscripts","author":"admin","date":"March 26, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"[Header Image: Cambridge, Queen's College MS C.13.16] Today, together with my colleagues, Heather Wacha, Sarah Bond, and Katherine Tachau, I led a workshop on \"Latin\u00a0Paleography and Transcription\", under the auspices of the University of Iowa Digital Scholarship and Publishing Studio. The workshop celebrated the launch of a new feature of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Digital Humanities"","block_context":{"text":"Digital Humanities","link":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/category\/digital-humanities\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/c-13-16-cropped-glossed.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/c-13-16-cropped-glossed.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/c-13-16-cropped-glossed.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/c-13-16-cropped-glossed.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/c-13-16-cropped-glossed.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/c-13-16-cropped-glossed.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":73,"url":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/2012\/09\/01\/ghs-website-relaunch-first-hastac-post\/","url_meta":{"origin":81,"position":5},"title":"GHS Website Relaunch; First HASTAC Post","author":"Yvonne Seale","date":"September 1, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The Graduate History Society is is an official University of Iowa student organization which represents all graduate students in the history department. I'm one of its officers for the 2012-13 academic year, and have helped to update our web presence a little bit. We have a fresh new website, at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "GHS"","block_context":{"text":"GHS","link":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/category\/ghs\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/6a013486c64e2e970c017c3198f758970b.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/6a013486c64e2e970c01630021a5ed970d.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}