From Professors Alicia Batten and Derek Suderman attended the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies / Société canadienne des études bibliques annual meeting at Mount Allison University (New Brunswick), May 28-30, 2026.This year, Alicia served as the President of the Society and thus had a hand in organizing the meeting. She also delivered the presidential address, called “Textile Topography: Dress, Bodies, and Ancient Christ Followers.”Derek gave two papers: “Patient Expectation or Militaristic Hope: A Rhetorical and Intertextual Reading of Habakkuk’s Psalm,” and “Guarding One’s Life: “Hearing” Psalm 35 in Light of Residential Schools in Canada.” There was also a rich panel discussion of Danny Zacharias’ and Chris Hoklotubbe’s recent book, Reading the Bible on Turtle Island, as well as many other interesting academic papers, in English and French, on a variety of biblical and related texts.
Every two years the Society also hosts a Craigie Lecture, which honours the memory of biblical scholar, Peter Craigie. This year, it was from Dr. Rhiannon Graybill, from the University of Richmond, Virginia, entitled, “This is Not My Beautiful Body: Weird Female Bodies in the Hebrew Bible and Contemporary Fiction.”