Sacred Texts, Theory, and Theological Construction Unit

For 2026, the unit Sacred Texts, Theory, and Theological Construction (STTTC) will be offering two themed sessions, an open session, and an invited panel. 

The first themed session is part of a three-year plan to critically explore the unit’s identity. This year, we start by exploring the question of what are/make “sacred texts”? We especially welcome discussions on “texts” that go beyond what is “written” but takes its etymological meaning what is “woven (texere)” in traditions (including rituals, symbols/icons, spaces/architecture, garments, music/chants, calendars, foodways, body paints, etc.) in conversation with Critical Theory (broadly defined), Cultural Studies, and Continental Philosophy. We are particularly interested in papers that go beyond the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. 

The second themed session (co-sponsored with the Kierkegaard, Religion, and Culture unit) invites papers that explore the engagement of Søren Kierkegaard with biblical hermeneutics in his For Self-Examination (1851). With the destructive forces of Christian nationalism on the rise and the future of democracy in the United States at stake, it is critical for us to consider how various biblical hermeneutical frameworks reveal the motivations of human hearts more-so than they reveal about the biblical text itself. In For Self-Examination, Kierkegaard invites his readers to engage with the biblical text with all the interest and passion that a lover would engage with a letter from one's beloved rather than as an object of impersonal disinterested speculation. The biblical text is then construed as a mirror that one must not look at as though observing the mirror itself but must see oneself in the mirror. How we relate to the biblical text is constitutive of our desires and therefore of our lived theologies. Considering the existentially consequential nature of our various hermeneutical approaches, this co-sponsored session seeks papers that engage Søren Kierkegaard’s approach to biblical hermeneutics (as found in For Self-Examination) in conversation with past, present, and emerging trends in biblical hermeneutics, particularly those that address the rise of Christian nationalism. 

In the third session (an open session), we invite the submission of any papers that resonate with the general interests and mandate of STTTC. We are particularly interested in the exploration of emerging theoretical ventures (such as Afrofuturism, Afropessimism, critical mixed race studies, global indigenous solidarity/indigeneity, cyborg theory, critical studies of artificial intelligence [AI], blue humanities, critical infrastructure studies, etc.) as well as of traditions have yet to be represented in the AAR (Zoroastrians, Mandaeans, Samaritans, Ainus, Sámis, etc.). We also welcome full panel submissions on a specific theoretical approach or theorist (e.g., Octavia Butler and Afrofuturism), or a particular tradition (e.g., Zoroastrianism).

The fourth session (co-sponsored with the SBL Reading, Theory, & the Bible and the SBL Bible & Popular Culture units) will be an invited panel of scholars responding to the recently published book by Tina Pippin (the President of the SBL), The Actual Jesus (Cascade 2025). This session is closed to submission.