Texts and Authors Outside Normative Experience

Texts and Authors That Fall Outside of Normative Experience and Language 

This research project focuses intentionally on texts, authors, and genres where people step outside of normative experience and language, e.g. hagiographic and narrative, spiritual instruction and exhortation, hymns and liturgy, magic and ritual, and moral or comic stories.

Generally these works have either never appeared in an accessible English translation, are only available in old-fashioned English, or are otherwise obscure. The untranslated texts themselves are also not conveniently accessible in reading editions for language students and scholars. The texts in view for the project show attempts to go beyond everyday, usual human connections and ways of looking at, hearing, feeling, and otherwise perceiving the worlds around us.

The aim of this project, then, is to make these texts more readily available to any interested reader, both with modern reader-friendly text editions of the source language and with intentionally crafted English translations, along with the usual introductions and annotations. 

Project point person: Adam Bremer-McCollum, Research Associate