DR. JIM'S THINKING SHOP & TEA ROOM: Now with more penguins!

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Jim Linville, associate professor of Religious Studies at the University of Lethbridge in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada. I’ve been here since 2002, and I’m currently the department chair. I catch all the sit.

If you want to contact me on university related business:

A812D University Hall

4401 University Drive

University of Lethbridge

Lethbridge AB

T1K3M4

Ph. 403 329 2537

Email: james.linville@uleth.ca

For anything else:

happilyunchurched@gmail.com

Dr. Jim, proprietor of the Thinking Shop,
in a typical moment of philosophical insight.

My main field of study is the Hebrew Bible and I finished my PhD in 1997 at the University of Edinburgh under Prof. Graeme Auld. I did my undergraduate work under Ehud Ben Zvi and Francis Landy at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.

My thesis, Israel in the Book of Kings: The Past as a Project of Social Identity, was completed in 1997 and published by Sheffield Academic Press the following year in the JSOT Supplement Series. Someone read it once.

In 2008 I finally saw in print my second book Amos and the Cosmic Imagination published by Ashgate in SOTS series.

Le Blurb:

Said to contain the words of the earliest of the biblical prophets (8th century BCE), the book of Amos is reinterpreted by James Linville in light of new and sometimes controversial historical approaches to the Bible. Amos is read as the literary product of the Persian-era community in Judah. Its representations of divine-human communication are investigated in the context of the ancient writers’ own role as transmitters and shapers of religious traditions. Amos’s extraordinary poetry expresses mythical conceptions of divine manifestation and a process of destruction and recreation of the cosmos which reveals that behind the appearances of the natural world is a heavenly, cosmic temple.

It’s available as an E-book. Click here for the Ashgate page.

St. Mark of Emphasis says
“Buy this book and save the innocent and unsuspecting”

I have three main writing projects at present. Most significantly, I’m working on a book on myth theory and the Hebrew Bible. Since what counts as myth is socially determined it does no good to assess the biblical materials according to definitions of myth best suited to describing the sacred narratives of other societies without modifying those definitions to illuminate Israelite or Judean myth. I also want to look at the prophetic literature and prophetic characters (Isaiah, Amos et. al) in this light.  I didn’t expect it, but this project has taken a bit of a turn into studying some aspects of ancient magic and incantations as examples of “applied mythology”: myth that is used to empower spells and so forth. I think it may be a key to open up a number of prophetic passages, not to mention some Psalms. I also think that there is a lot to learn from a comparative religion approach to the Hebrew Bible and ancient Israelite and Judean religion.

Dr. Homer Simpson, demonstrating Ganesh’s mythical,
“I don’t approve of this wedding” ritual dance.

The second project is to turn a whole mess of lecture notes and so forth into a workable introduction to the Hebrew Bible. I did want to make it a text book but I’m now thinking that will be boring and the market is flooded with some excellent works.  Instead, I want to direct the book toward the atheist activist community who often don’t have much background in biblical scholarship and often rely on outdated or wrong approaches and information and who think that any refutation that includes an insult is valid. In short, it will be a book I wish Dawkins had available when writing The God Delusion because his handling of the Bible and Religion in general was, in some places, pretty pathetic. It was enough to drive one to drink.

The Official Beer of the Dept. of Religious Studies.

The other project is still in its infancy, and that is a study of fundamentalist biblical interpretation and the ideology and symbolic (instead of just “pseudo-”) “science” of the creationist movement. I’m really interested in how the scientific discourse becomes the well from which religious meaning is drawn. No idea where this will lead. Stay tuned.

One of the things I’m most proud of is the “Research in Religious Studies” Conference that I organize every Spring for our students. We are now beginning planning for our eighth year. We get students from all over Western Canada and a few from as far away as Eastern Canada. Some intrepid souls journey up the States, and we have had some papers from Vanderbilt and elsewhere. Last year we had a lot of cancellations (work commitments, lack of funding from universities, etc) but still 27 or so papers were presented. The previous three years saw around 40 each year!

Click here for the 2009 Conference Proceedings (PDF)

The topics for the conference are pretty open. Anything to do with the academic study of religion is fare game. This year, we started a blog for the conference, and you can find that here. I will post the call for papers and all that when its time.

Sadly, there are very few biblical studies papers presented, and of those that are, the Hebrew Bible ones are rare indeed. Hopefully that will change soon.

I’m usually an avowed atheist but have moments of deliberate, calculating agnosticism, and noticeably less calculating neo-romantical humanism. I also have three cats and a tradition of throwing really silly Halloween parties and, occasionally, non-kosher Purim parties with my own “Revised Substandard” versions of Esther.

Ms Molly Rose Bean.

Anyway, I will be posting stuff here from time to time on my work, atheistical and agnoticalistic stuff, funny nonsense I encounter, opinions, editorials, silly stuff, and pictures of my cats. You can contact me here.

Dr Jim’s other two cats

Mr. Maxwell Mischief (in red) and his twin brother, Mr. Dash “Scamperpaw” Molasses, having a rational discussion over whether or not God really is a delusion.

I will also, from time to time, lament and loudly grieve the passing of Ms Alice Louise Kitten (2001-2008).