Professor Voices » Literature

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Jenny Mackintosh — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 16:56:12 +0000

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Sex and the Bible: BU professor’s new book breaks it down

Kira Jastive — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 20:21:31 +0000

In her recently published book, Unprotected Texts: The Bible’s Surprising Contradictions About Sex and Desire, Boston University School of Theology (STH) Professor Jennifer Wright Knust addresses the many questions and debates surrounding what the Bible says about sex. Covering everything from premarital sex and sexual desire to same-sex relations, Knust argues that the Bible cannot and should not be a rulebook for sexual morality.

The book has been featured in Newsweek and Knust is a guest voice this week on The Washington Post’s “On Faith” blog. In The Huffington Post, she talks with fellow BU Professor Stephen Prothero where she says “the Bible continues to be invoked in today’s public debates as if it should have the last word on contemporary American sexual morals,” and that “the only way the Bible can be a sexual rulebook is if no one reads it.”

Changing Huck Finn? BU Education Dean Weighs-in

Kira Jastive — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 20:27:28 +0000

Hardin Coleman, Dean of the Boston University School of Education (SED), offers his take on the new edition of Huckleberry Finn being published in February that removes the 219 references to the n-word.

Will this change make the book more accessible to teachers and students in the classroom or is altering Twain’s work censorship? Dr. Coleman thinks changing the book is “disturbing from the level of intellectual honesty” and that “sugar coating” the book does not allow for growth and change when it comes to issues of race and discrimination.