Esther Keeps the Score: Trauma, Body and Politics in the Hebrew Bible

Review Quotes: Rarely does a book provide unique insight into both a biblical hermeneutic and application of it. In Alexiana Fry's Esther Keeps the Score, readers not only gain insight into the ever-elusive category that is trauma, but also a new understanding of Esther as trauma literature. Without restraint, Fry provides a model for how to do interdisciplinary work in the field of biblical studies. --Sarah Emanuel Table of Contents: 1. Introduction - the Book of Esther and Trauma: 2. Exile, Diaspora, and Trauma: Do I Belong? 3. "If I am Pleasing" Esther and the Fawn Response 4. Self-Defense, Revenge, and the Added Day of Killing in Esther 9: This Isn't Fun Anymore 5. Silenced, Not Hidden: Harems, Amalekites, Ahaseurus, and the Eunuchs? 6. Not Redeeming, nor Remaining, But Re-Minding the Book of Esther Review Quotes: Fry does not offer prescriptive advice on how to read the biblical book of Esther. She provides something more intimate and compelling: namely, a thoughtful demonstration of how personal experience, history and unfolding events can shape and shift the process of reading, interpretation and identity formation. Every reader brings their own assumptions to reading biblical texts - this trauma-informed book shows how this operates and why it matters.--Johanna Stiebert Review Quotes: Fry provides something more intimate and compelling than prescriptive advice on reading Esther... Every reader brings their own assumptions to reading biblical texts - this trauma-informed book shows how this operates and why it matters.--Johanna Stiebert Review Quotes: Powerful, readable, and necessary, Fry's monograph offers insights grounded in fine scholarship and nuanced empathy. A must-read for scholars of trauma or the book of Esther, it models how biblical scholarship can synthesize traditional close reading, critical theory and real-world application as fluent conversation partners.--Esther Brownsmith Review Quotes: Describing this book in the preface, as a love letter to Esther, Alexiana Fry offers a reading that is anything but sentimental. Through a rigorous and robust trauma hermeneutic, she exposes the brutal textures beneath the narrative's reversals. I commend this work to scholars and students who grapple with how sacred texts carry, conceal and transmit violence.--Sarojini Nadar Publisher Marketing: We can no longer read biblical texts that include explicit and implicit depictions of violence without awareness of trauma. In Esther Keeps the Score, Alexiana Fry challenges conventional interpretations of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament book of Esther. Fry offers a full treatment of the violence found within, seen through a trauma-informed lens, acknowledging the many shifting contexts and power structures that create significant effect on the characters in the story. Through an analysis of gender and ethnic minoritization in diaspora settings, as well as how this shows itself in emotional and somatic compulsive responses, the book of Esther can be read afresh with empathic eyes. Understanding Esther with a holistic view on how oppression creates, sustains and perpetuates trauma, in both individuals and collectives, should cause readers to consider ways to break the cycle, both in the book and in their own worlds and lives. A must-read for Old Testament and trauma scholars, preachers, as well as anyone seeking to better understand how trauma operates in biblical narratives, Esther Keeps the Score reshapes our understanding of Esther's story and its implications for survival in a hostile world of patriarchy, sexism, misogyny and racism. Contributor Bio:Fry, Alexiana Dr Alexiana Fry is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Copenhagen for the project 'Divergent Views of Diaspora in Ancient Judaism'. She received her PhD in Old Testament from Stellenbosch University in South Africa in 2021, where she began her specialisation at the intersection of gender, trauma and migration studies in biblical interpretation.

Titel: Esther Keeps the Score: Trauma, Body and Politics in the Hebrew Bible
Förlag: Scm