Recent am primit confirmarea că tema pe care am propus-o pentru conferința „Religions of the Book”, programată în perioada 17-21 septembrie 2014, a fost acceptată.

Selecția a fost foarte riguroasă, fiindcă fiecare propunere a fost evaluată de o echipă de 12 cercetători, pe baza a cinci criterii:

1. The overall scientific relevance of the proposal.

2. The relevance of the proposal to the conference topic (as defined in the
call for papers).

3. The feasibility of the proposal.

4. The coherence of the proposal.

 5. The scientific quality of the proposal.

Pornind de la cele cinci puncte, evaluatorii au votat dacă să accepte sau să refuze un rezumat. Decizia de acceptare s-a luat cu o majoritate simplă de voturi favorabile.

Spre deosebire de conferințele din România, unde numai cine nu vrea nu prezintă, rata de acceptare la această conferință a fost de 79%. Au fost selectate 136 de lucrări, distribuite în 31 de sesiuni.

Așadar, o conferință măricică. Nu chiar ca cele SBL, dar mai mare decât conferințele tipice.

Mai jos puteți citi rezumatul pe care sper să-l pot dezvolta într-o lucrare de 20 de minute.

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“The word of God is not bound”. Bible Censorship within the Romanian-speaking Territories during the 19th and 20th Centuries

Although rare, attempted religious censorship against Romanian versions of Bible was a recurrent experience in the history of book publishing and dissemination during the 19th century. Occasional attempts at limiting the distribution of Bibles published outside the religious establishment continued during the interwar period, when Romania experienced a regime which began as a frail democracy and ended as the royal dictatorship of Carol II. After the installation of the Communist regime (self-styled as the “regime of popular democracy”), censorship aimed against the Bible became more pervasive, culminating in the recycling into toilet paper of 20,000 bibles donated in the 1970s by the World Reformed Alliance of the Transylvanian Magyar Reformed Church.

In this paper I intend to survey the main cases of attempted or effective censorship against the Bible in Romanian territories in the 19th and 20th century, highlighting the most relevant changes from one period to another and assessing the motivations of the censoring authorities. I believe that the results would help other scholars identify similarities and dissimilarities of censorship practices in countries situated in the same region (Eastern Europe) or in the neighboring ones.