The Parables of Jesus in Agrarian Contexts - Part 2
with Dr. Aliou Cissé Niang
Tuesday, November 12, 2024
7:00 – 8:30 p.m. CST
Online

In this workshop participants will learn to read the parables of Jesus in their Roman Palestinian agrarian context in conversation with modern pre- and postcolonial agrarian contexts (e. g. West African and other indigenous cultures). Issues for exploration include imperially enforced agricultural practices, their effects on subsistence-based economies, modes of land fertilization, the resulting ecojustice concerns informed by faith traditions, and their implications for experiencing and exercising God’s reign. The seminar will explore the following questions: What is the basic structure of a parable? What does a parable mean to convey? What do parables tell us about power differentials among elites, peasants, and other people? What do parables say about culture, religion, and the economic culture of Roman Palestine? Are there parallels between the agrarian economy of Roman Palestine and our modern agricultural practices? Why reread the parables of Jesus today?

Dr. Aliou Cissé Niang obtained a Ph.D. in Biblical Interpretation with a focus on the New Testament at Brite Divinity School (TCU) in Fort Worth; an M.A. Th. from Logsdon School of Theology at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, TX; and a B.A. in Religious Studies with a minor in history at Williams Baptist College in Walnut Ridge, Arkansas. He is Associate Professor of New Testament at Union Theological Seminary in New York. His scholarship, research and teaching combine New Testament Cross-cultural Exegesis, Greco-Roman, and African Identity Constructions, Negritude as Postcolonial Biblical Criticism, and spirituality. Niang is the author of Faith and Freedom in Galatia and Senegal (2009); co-author of Text, Image, and Christians in the Graeco-Roman World: A Festschrift in Honor of David Lee Balch (2012); A Poetics of Postcolonial Biblical Criticism: God, Human-Nature Relationship, and Negritude (Cascade Books, 2019); co-author of Life Under the Baobab Tree: Africana Studies and Religion in a Transitional Age (2023).

Registration opens August 1.