[hist, phil/law/anthro] Fwd: "Theology, Gambling and Risk"
Interesting talks to listen to! Halacha, Alfonso El Sabio, a secret history of US drug law, an anthropological/semiotic analysis of modern gambling vis a vis modern capitalism, and other good things.
I decided to see what Dwayne Carpenter (the author of the paper I just linked to) was up to these days, and googling turned up this interesting panel he was on at a academic conference at Boston College, titled "Gambling and the American Moral Landscape", in 2007. The relevant panel (for which he was the discussant), "Theology, Gambling and Risk", was recorded and the MP3s are available on the web (search in page for the panel title).
Not, given the title, something that would have immediately caught my interest. But given my exposure to his previous work, I was interested in what Carpenter would have to say, which seemed to mean having to listen to the other three presenters he was commenting on, first. Turned out to be fascinating; I'm planning on going back to listen to them again, and I really wish there was a transcript so I could just cut and paste some of the more fascinating bits. Each talk is about 30 min long.
The first speaker, William Galson, of the Brookings Institution (Governance Studies Program) spoke on gambling in Judaism through history. This was, remarkably, the least interesting talk of the bunch; Halacha nerds and cross-cultural religous studies fans may enjoy this. Interesting passing comment that he doesn't expand upon: Judaism at least in its traditional form is totalistic. It subjects every aspect of life to detailed scrutiny, and it regards every sphere of human conduct as within its purview of regulation and judgment. From this feature of Judaism, one can infer how much work it took to orient Judaism affirmatively towards the public/private distinction which is characteristic of liberal democracies. And there is a very interesting story about how that retrofitting of Judaism occurred.
He then says no more about it! I would like to know more about that, not least because that seems to be something Islam is going through right now.
The second speaker, Kathryn Tanner, of the University of Chicago, is "a christian theologian in the Protestant tradition" (looked her up: Episcopal, apparently), author of Economy of Grace. Her talk starts with Pascal and his "wager", goes to Geerz' anthropology of Balinese cockfighting, then gets into gambling as an expression of disenchantment with modern capitalism, and then into how this ties into the old Faith v. Works Christian theological debate. In short: a completely rocking talk. Still not sure I understand the end of it, but I think I missed a bit because I was getting lost in my own very provoked thoughts.
The third speaker, William Stuntz, Harvard University (Harvard Law), with a specialties in Christianity and legal theory, and in criminal procedure, presenting a cowritten paper by him and David A. Skeel, Jr., University of Pennsylvania, a professor of corporate law, talked about the very interesting question of why in the US there's such legal homogenity in vice law and very little regional variation in vice law as one might expect from federalism; about the changing ways American Christianity has regarded the role of law in moral vices from the end of the 19th century to the early 21st; an absolutely fascinating digression into an account of why drug charge sentences are so extreme (which I would argue that anybody interested in legalization really needs to know about); the social consequences of extreme sentences for drug charges; and the shifting political alliances between different factions of American Christianity. Unfortunately, it falls off a cliff a bit towards the end (tw: from an anti-abortion stand point), and his thesis seems to be "Christians/Americans don't try to legislate gambling away because they don't care, let's talk about drugs instead."
Finally, Dwayne Carpenter, who is both chair of the BC Dept of Romance Languages and Literatures and co-director of the Jewish Studies Program (BC has a Jewish Studies Program?!), used the occasion to discuss his main man, Alfonso El Sabio, so if you were looking for the podcast version of the paper I linked earlier, this is basically it. Also various random bits of entertaining Judaica, and the psychological similarities of gambling and prayer.
I decided to see what Dwayne Carpenter (the author of the paper I just linked to) was up to these days, and googling turned up this interesting panel he was on at a academic conference at Boston College, titled "Gambling and the American Moral Landscape", in 2007. The relevant panel (for which he was the discussant), "Theology, Gambling and Risk", was recorded and the MP3s are available on the web (search in page for the panel title).
Not, given the title, something that would have immediately caught my interest. But given my exposure to his previous work, I was interested in what Carpenter would have to say, which seemed to mean having to listen to the other three presenters he was commenting on, first. Turned out to be fascinating; I'm planning on going back to listen to them again, and I really wish there was a transcript so I could just cut and paste some of the more fascinating bits. Each talk is about 30 min long.
The first speaker, William Galson, of the Brookings Institution (Governance Studies Program) spoke on gambling in Judaism through history. This was, remarkably, the least interesting talk of the bunch; Halacha nerds and cross-cultural religous studies fans may enjoy this. Interesting passing comment that he doesn't expand upon: Judaism at least in its traditional form is totalistic. It subjects every aspect of life to detailed scrutiny, and it regards every sphere of human conduct as within its purview of regulation and judgment. From this feature of Judaism, one can infer how much work it took to orient Judaism affirmatively towards the public/private distinction which is characteristic of liberal democracies. And there is a very interesting story about how that retrofitting of Judaism occurred.
He then says no more about it! I would like to know more about that, not least because that seems to be something Islam is going through right now.
The second speaker, Kathryn Tanner, of the University of Chicago, is "a christian theologian in the Protestant tradition" (looked her up: Episcopal, apparently), author of Economy of Grace. Her talk starts with Pascal and his "wager", goes to Geerz' anthropology of Balinese cockfighting, then gets into gambling as an expression of disenchantment with modern capitalism, and then into how this ties into the old Faith v. Works Christian theological debate. In short: a completely rocking talk. Still not sure I understand the end of it, but I think I missed a bit because I was getting lost in my own very provoked thoughts.
The third speaker, William Stuntz, Harvard University (Harvard Law), with a specialties in Christianity and legal theory, and in criminal procedure, presenting a cowritten paper by him and David A. Skeel, Jr., University of Pennsylvania, a professor of corporate law, talked about the very interesting question of why in the US there's such legal homogenity in vice law and very little regional variation in vice law as one might expect from federalism; about the changing ways American Christianity has regarded the role of law in moral vices from the end of the 19th century to the early 21st; an absolutely fascinating digression into an account of why drug charge sentences are so extreme (which I would argue that anybody interested in legalization really needs to know about); the social consequences of extreme sentences for drug charges; and the shifting political alliances between different factions of American Christianity. Unfortunately, it falls off a cliff a bit towards the end (tw: from an anti-abortion stand point), and his thesis seems to be "Christians/Americans don't try to legislate gambling away because they don't care, let's talk about drugs instead."
Finally, Dwayne Carpenter, who is both chair of the BC Dept of Romance Languages and Literatures and co-director of the Jewish Studies Program (BC has a Jewish Studies Program?!), used the occasion to discuss his main man, Alfonso El Sabio, so if you were looking for the podcast version of the paper I linked earlier, this is basically it. Also various random bits of entertaining Judaica, and the psychological similarities of gambling and prayer.