Roberto Mata Gives Several Talks and Publishes Work
During Roberto Mata’s trip to Harvard and SBL/AAR panel participation, he participated in three panels at two separate events.
The first panel was part of a closed colloquium at Harvard University titled, “The Sense(s) of History: Apocalyptic Literature and its Temporalities”. The event took place from Nov. 16-18 and he had the opportunity to chair. As a scholar working on the Book of Revelation, attending this panel was crucial for understanding new research trends in Revelation scholarship in particular and Apocalyptic literature in general.
The second panel was part of the AAR/SBL conference and was sponsored by the Latino/a Latin American Biblical Interpretation group. Here he delivered a review presentation of the book, Revelation in Aztlan: Scriptures, Utopias, and the Chicano Movement. The panelists’ responses will be published next month in Perspectivas, the bilingual and peer-reviewed journal of the Hispanic Theological Initiative.
The third panel was also part of the AAR/SBL conference and was sponsored by the Postcolonial Biblical Interpretation group. The question that the presentations addressed revolved around the idea of "Decolonizing Christianity."
He contributed a chapter to an edited volume titled “The Bible and Migration”, which will be published this year in Palgrave's The Bible and Cultural Studies series. This volume examines the conjunction between migration and biblical and other ancient texts, as informed by Latinx histories and/or experiences. Essays reflect upon Latin@s, the Bible, and migration in different ways: some consider how the Bible is used or may be used in the midst of or in response to Latina/o experiences and histories of migration; some use Latino/a histories and experiences of migration to examine the Bible and biblical material as texts of migration; some consider the “Bible” as a phenomenological set of texts that responds to and/or compels migration. Seattle University's Center for Religious Wisdom and World Affairs brings together theologians, biblical scholars, and social scientists from across the country and globe, in dialogue with community stakeholders from the Puget Sound region, with the aim of unleashing more effective faith-based responses to our most pressing social problems. From a pool of 150 applicants, the center selected 15 to be part of the founding cohort and to address the issue of homelessness in a symposium at the Seattle's School of Theology and Ministry. There Mata had the opportunity to present a paper titled, "And I Saw Googleville Descend from Heaven: Reading the John's New Jerusalem from Gentrified Latinx Communities in the Southbay." The papers will be published in a volume on Religion and Homelessness through Fordham University Press in 2019.