Landy, Francis
Dr Francis Landy
(Professor)
Ph.D., University of Sussex (1983)
BA, Cambridge University (1969)
Arts 3-37E
University of Alberta
Edmonton, AB T6G 2H4
Tel. (780) 492-4876
francis.landy@ualberta.ca
| Expertise & Research Interests |
Francis Landy specializes in the literary study of the Hebrew Bible. He is particularly interested in questions of language, identity, and the relationship of poetry to trauma in the book of Isaiah, on which he has been writing for many years. His focus in this work has been sexuality and gender; death; alterity; and the constitutive enigma, whereby Isaiah is commissioned to speak so as not to be understood. Future topics on which he intends to write are parable and metaphor; maternal imagery in Deutero-Isaiah; and Trito-Isaiah. Other interests are Midrash, Kabbalah and theory in the study of religion, in which he straddles the divide between poetic and socially orientated approaches. His books include Paradoxes of Paradise: Identity and Difference in the Song of Songs, Hosea, a commentary in the Readings series published by Sheffield Phoenix Press, and Beauty and the Enigma and Other Essays on the Hebrew Bible. He is editor of the Canadian journal Studies in Religion, and is currently President of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies. As graduate coordinator, he steered through the establishment of the doctoral program in Religious Studies at the University of Alberta.
| Teaching |
- Method and Theory in the Study of Religion (Winter 2010).This year we will be focusing on a literary approach and cognitive theories of religion (undergraduate/graduate) – co-taught with Willi Braun.
- Literary Approaches to the Hebrew Bible (Winter 2010).Trito-Isaiah (Isaiah 56-66) (undergraduate/graduate)
- Introduction to Judaism (Fall 2009).
Next year I intend to teach:
- Introduction to Hebrew Bible (Fall 2010)
- A new course on the History of Judaism
- A new course on Derrida and Religion.
| Publications |
- “Spectrality in the Prologue to Deutero-Isaiah” in Joseph Everson and Paul H.C. Kim (eds) The Desert Will Bloom: Poetic Visions in Isaiah (SBL: Atlanta, 2009), pp.131-158.
- “Smith, Derrida, and Amos” Willi Braun and Russell T. McCutcheon (eds) Introducing Religion: Festschrift for Jonathan Z. Smith (London: Equinox, 2008) pp.208-30.
- “The Burden of Tyre.” in Ingo Kottsieper, Rüdiger Schmitt, Jakob Wöhrle (eds) Berürhingspunkte. Studien zur Religions- und Sozialgeschichte des Alten Israel und Seiner Umwelt. Festschrift für Rainer Albertz (AOAT 350; Ugarit-Verlag: Munster, 2008) pp. 239-52.
- Noah’s Ark and Mrs. Monkey” Biblical Interpretation 15 (2007) pp.351-76.
- “Judges 1: The City of Writing, the Sacred, and the Fragmentation of the Body” in Armin Siedlecki and Wesley Bergen (eds) Uncharted Waters: Essays in Honour of David Jobling (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2006, pp.37-50.
- “The Temple in the Akedah” in Isaac Kalimi and Peter J. Haas (eds) Biblical Interpretation in Judaism and Christianity (eds) (London: T & T Clark, 2006) pp. 237-50