You Show Your Smith and I’ll Show Mine: Selection, Exegesis, and the Politics of Citation

This essay reflects on the politics and poetics of citation, and offers a constructive reading of Jonathan Z. Smith's work. This is accomplished by a careful, critical reading of Hugh Urban's trenchant critiques of Smith. I argue that the referential techniques through which Urban construc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Method & theory in the study of religion 2009-01, Vol.21 (4), p.437-459
Main Author: Parrish, John W
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Christianity
Contemporary legends
Dialogism
Empirical evidence
Essays
Hugh Urban
Humans
Jokes
Jonathan Z. Smith
Metaphors
Normativity
Poetics
politics of citation
Citations: Items that cite this one
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Summary:This essay reflects on the politics and poetics of citation, and offers a constructive reading of Jonathan Z. Smith's work. This is accomplished by a careful, critical reading of Hugh Urban's trenchant critiques of Smith. I argue that the referential techniques through which Urban constructs his argument are highly selective and often manipulate the relevant texts. The final pages of the essay consider how, based on the techniques of citation employed, one can always produce a different reading. The essay thus serves as an "e.g." of how our methods and theories drive our use of data and create our object of study; or, as Smith puts it, scholars have no privileged "place on which to stand."
ISSN:0943-3058
1570-0682
0943-3058
DOI:10.1163/094330509X12568874557252