Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents v
3. Foreword ix
4. Preface xi
5. Introduction: TEXTureS, Gestures, Power: Orientation to Radical Excavation 1
6. Part I. The Phenomenon—and Its Origins
7. 1. Scriptures—Text and Then Some 23
8. 2. Signifying Revelation in Islam 29
9. 3. Scriptures and the Nature of Authority: The Case of the Guru Granth in Sikh Tradition 41
10. 4. The Dynamics of Scripturalization: The Ancient Near East 55
11. 5. Known Knowns and Unknown Unknowns: Scriptures and Scriptural Interpretations 62
12. Talking Back 67
13. Part II. Settings, Situations, Practices
14. 6. Signifying Scriptures in Confucianism 71
15. 7. The Confessions of Nat Turner: Memoir of a Martyr or Testament of a Terrorist? 79
16. 8. Signifying Scriptures from an African Perspective 88
17. 9. Transforming Identities, De-textualizing Interpretation, and Re-modalizing Representation: Scriptures and Subaltern Subjectivity in India 95
18. 10. Signification as Scripturalization: Communal Memories Among the Miao and in Ancient Jewish Allegorization 105
19. Talking Back 115
20. Part III. Material and Expressive Representations
21. 11. Conjuring Scriptures and Engendering Healing Traditions 119
22. 12. Visualizing Scriptures 128
23. 13. Signifying in Nineteenth-Century African American Religious Music 134
24. 14. Signifying Proverbs: Menace II Society 145
25. 15. Scriptures Beyond Script: Some African Diasporic Occasions 155
26. 16. Texture, Text, and Testament: Reading Sacred Symbols/ Signifying Imagery in American Visual Culture 167
27. Talking Back 179
28. Part IV. Psycho-Social-Cultural/Power Needs and Dynamics
29. 17. Differences at Play in the Fields of the Lord 183
30. 18. American Samson: Biblical Reading and National Origins 195
31. 19. Against Signifying: Psychosocial Needs and Natural Evil 206
32. 20. Orality, Memory, and Power: Vedic Scriptures and Brahmanical Hegemony in India 214
33. 21. Reading Places/Reading Scriptures 220
34. 22. Taniwha and Serpent: A Trans-Tasman Riff 227
35. 23. Scriptures Without Letters, Subversions of Pictography, Signifyin(g) Alphabetical Writing 233
36. Talking Back 244
37. Part V. Signifying on the Questions
38. 24. In Hoc Signum Vincent: A Midrashist Replies 247
39. 25. Powerful Words: The Social-intellectual Location of the International Signifying Scriptures Project 256
40. 26. Racial and Colonial Politics of the Modern Object of Knowledge: Cautionary Notes on “Scripture” 268
41. 27. Who Needs the Subaltern? 278
42. Talking Back 284
43. Bibliography 287
44. Notes on Contributors 299
45. Index 303