Foreword by Charles H. Long Preface Introduction: TEXTureS, Gestures, Power: Orientation to Radical Excavation by Vincent L. Wimbush Part I. The Phenomenon - and Its Origins 1. Scriptures - Test and Then Some by Catherine Bell 2. Signifying Revelation in Islam by Tazim R. Kassam 3. Scriptures and the Nature of Authority: The Case of the Guru Granth in Sikh Tradition by Gurinder Singh Mann 4.
The Dynamics of Scripturalization: The Ancient Near by Hugh R. Page Jr. 5. Known Knowns and Unknown Unknowns: Scriptures and Scriptural Interpretations by R. S. Sugirtharajah Talking Back Part II. Settings, Situations, Practices 6. Signifying Scriptures in Confucianism by Yan Shoucheng 7.
The Confessions of Nat Turner: Memoir of a Martyr or Testament of a Terrorist? by William L. Andrews 8. Signifying Scriptures from an African Perspective by Oyeronke Olajubu 9. Transforming Identities, De-textualizing Interpretation, and Re-modalizing Representation: Scriptures and Subaltern Subjectivity in India by Sathianathan Clarke 10. Signification as Scripturalization: Communal Memories Among the Miao and in Ancient Jewish Allegorization by Sze-Kar Wan Talking Back Part III. Material and Expressive Representations 11. Conjuring Scriptures and Engendering Healing Traditions by Yvonne P. Chireau 12.
Visualizing Scriptures by Colleen McDannell 13. Signifying in Nineteenth-Century African American Religious Music by Jacqueline Cogdell Djedje 14. Signifying Proverbs: Menace II Society Erin Runions 15. Scriptures Beyond Script: Some African Diasporic Occasions by Grey Gundaker 16. Texture, Text, and Testament: Reading Sacred Symbols/Signifying Imagery in American Visual Culture by Leslie King-Hammond Talking Back Part IV. Psycho-Social-Cultural/Power Needs and Dynamics 17. Differences at Play in the Fields of the Lord by Susan F. Harding 18.
American Samson: Biblical Reading and National Origins by Laura E. Donaldson 19. Against Signifying: Pyschological Needs and Natural Evil by Leonard Harris 20. Orality, Memory, and Power: Vedic Scriptures and Brahmanical Hegemony in India by Patrick Olivelle 21. Reading Places/Reading Scriptures by Wesley A. Kort 22. Taniwha and Serpent: A Trans-Tasman Riff by Jo Diamond 23. Scriptures Without Letters, Subversions of Pictography, Signifyin(g) Alphabetical Writing by Jose Rabasa Talking Back Part V.
Signifying on the Questions 24. In Hoc Signum Vincent: A Midrashist Replies by Burton L. Visotzky 25. Powerful Words: The Social-intellectual Location of the International Signifying Scriptures Project by Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza 26. Racial and Colonial Politics of the Modern Object of Knowledge: Cautionary Notes on "Scripture" by Joseph Parker 27. Who Needs the Subaltern? by Ranu Samantrai Talking Back Bibliography Notes on Contributors Index.