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The making of Ḥanina ben Dosa: Fan fiction in the Babylonian Talmud by Monica Amsler in the journal Transformative works.
I have sort of mixed feelings about this. In general, I support this kind of playfulness with Talmudic text, and I support thinking about fanfiction as technique and how it interacts with other literary traditions, and I love the observation in the beginning of the piece about how both fanfiction and Talmud are inherently written traditions, not oral traditions, in spite of one's initial temptation to see them as oral. I'm fully 100% delighted that Transformative Works published this article.
But I think there's a tendency in the article to primarily comprehend baraita as a framing device, a literary technique, rather than first trying to see it as a device for incorporating and understanding pre-existing traditions. I believe baraita is primarily a method by which the Amoraim looked at actual known practices, as observed empirically and as learned from their own teachers, that were in conflict with the texts of Mishna and Tosefta, and reconciled them. That said, I think it is clear that sometimes baraita is a literary device, and Rav Yosef's objection at [7.3] is a pretty obvious example of that, of the Rabbis struggling to make sense of an orally transmitted literary narrative and using midrashic (fanfictional) technique to resolve a narrative plot hole. But the article's interpretive lens generally overlooks the primary purpose of baraita and its interactivity with oral and empirical tradition. It makes it seem like the Hanina ben Dosa stories in the Babylonian Talmud were constructed from whole cloth by the Amoraim as part of a textual game they were playing.
I don't know exactly what feels off about it, I've tried to explain my alternate interpretation three different times and can't quite get hold of it. I think there's a version of the explanation of how the Savoraim put together these Hanina ben Dosa stories that does a better job of acknowledging the role of mesorah in the process, that's all.
But still, fanfic and Talmud, that's cool, right?
This entry was originally posted at https://seekingferret.dreamwidth.org/327031.html. Please comment there using OpenID. There are
comments.
I have sort of mixed feelings about this. In general, I support this kind of playfulness with Talmudic text, and I support thinking about fanfiction as technique and how it interacts with other literary traditions, and I love the observation in the beginning of the piece about how both fanfiction and Talmud are inherently written traditions, not oral traditions, in spite of one's initial temptation to see them as oral. I'm fully 100% delighted that Transformative Works published this article.
But I think there's a tendency in the article to primarily comprehend baraita as a framing device, a literary technique, rather than first trying to see it as a device for incorporating and understanding pre-existing traditions. I believe baraita is primarily a method by which the Amoraim looked at actual known practices, as observed empirically and as learned from their own teachers, that were in conflict with the texts of Mishna and Tosefta, and reconciled them. That said, I think it is clear that sometimes baraita is a literary device, and Rav Yosef's objection at [7.3] is a pretty obvious example of that, of the Rabbis struggling to make sense of an orally transmitted literary narrative and using midrashic (fanfictional) technique to resolve a narrative plot hole. But the article's interpretive lens generally overlooks the primary purpose of baraita and its interactivity with oral and empirical tradition. It makes it seem like the Hanina ben Dosa stories in the Babylonian Talmud were constructed from whole cloth by the Amoraim as part of a textual game they were playing.
I don't know exactly what feels off about it, I've tried to explain my alternate interpretation three different times and can't quite get hold of it. I think there's a version of the explanation of how the Savoraim put together these Hanina ben Dosa stories that does a better job of acknowledging the role of mesorah in the process, that's all.
But still, fanfic and Talmud, that's cool, right?
This entry was originally posted at https://seekingferret.dreamwidth.org/327031.html. Please comment there using OpenID. There are
comments.