December 5 - "Reconstructing Belonging: Exile and Identity in The Gospel of Mark", a talk by Allan Wright

Join us on Friday, December 5 at 3 p.m. in Tory 2-58 for "Reconstructing Belonging: Exile and Identity in The Gospel of Mark", a talk by Allan Wright.

After the destruction of Jerusalem’s Second temple, the author of the Gospel of Mark was faced with new social incongruities, namely exile, alienation, and lost socio-communal institutions. I argue that he was a displaced urban intellectual who mourns his lost social identification markers. However, Mark does not merely lament. Additionally, he provides a means to reconcile and rectify his social identity. Overall, Mark questions his self-identity through sentiments of social alienation and that he expresses these emotions through lamenting lost socio-cultural institutions and utilizes creative intellectual attempts to reconcile his lost social-cultural identifiers.

Allan Wright is an Assistant Lecturer at the University of Alberta in the Department of History, Classics, and Religion. He received his Phd from the University of Alberta in 2020 and is the author of the book 'Better To Reign in Hell, Than Serve in Heaven:' Satan's Metamorphosis From a Heavenly Council Member to the Ruler of Pandaemonium.