Crowds and Power in the Early Palestinian Tradition

This article draws on critical crowd theory to explore how historical Jesus research can benefit from a more robust understanding of the crowds that engulf Jesus as subjects of historical change. Conventional approaches to the crowds within New Testament scholarship are complicit in heightening Jesus’ individual exceptionalism. Rather than envisaging the crowds as part of the anonymous background to Jesus’ ministry, or as a literary invention by the Gospel authors, we should instead regard the crowds as a collective expression of underlying social, political, and economic antagonisms.

Letting the readers have a say: Crowd theory in collection development

One of the pressing concerns for academic and research librarians is collection development, or choosing and purchasing new books for the library. Librarians spend countless hours scanning through system-recommended book titles, trying to determine which ones the students will use and benefit from as academic resources. Do students look at book covers more than at content, for instance? Do they choose books based on five-star Amazon reviews? Do they prefer books with interesting titles or interesting descriptions? Every year we do our best to decide what will be most useful for students and their research needs.