Nyasha Junior

Nyasha Junior is an American biblical scholar. Her research focuses on the connections between religion, race, and gender within the Hebrew Bible. She is an Associate Professor at Temple University and holds a PhD from Princeton Theological Seminary. She is also a visiting associate professor and research associate at Harvard Divinity School for the 2020–21 academic year.

Nyasha Junior
CitizenshipUS
Occupation
  • Biblical scholar
  • academic
Known forWomanist biblical interpretation
Academic background
Education
Academic work
DisciplineTheology
InstitutionsTemple University
Websitenyashajunior.com

Early life and education

Nyasha Junior grew up in Florida.[1] Her family was very involved in the church, serving as ushers, pulpit speakers, and choir members.[1]

Junior initially pursued a career in public policy, earning a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and a Master of Public Administration from Princeton University.[2][3] In her mid-twenties she made a career switch to Bible Studies.[2] She earned a Master of Divinity from Pacific School of Religion and completed her PhD in Old Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary.[2][3][4]

Career

Junior is Associate Professor of Religion (Hebrew Bible) at Temple University where her research examines intersections of gender, religion and race, including study of the life of evangelist Jarena Lee.[5] She is also Visiting Associate Professor of Women's Studies and African-American Religions at Harvard University.[6] She previously taught at Howard University.[2] During her classes at Howard in 2014, she introduced preferred pronouns to the student roster.[7] Elsewhere she has observed that: "Inclusion is not oppression, and student demands for greater inclusion are not bullying" with reference to university course alterations.[8] She is described by Mitzi J Smith as being part of the third generation of womanist biblical scholars[9] - although she personally does not identify as a womanist scholar.[2] Her work on the life of Moses has been viewed as a starting point for how he can be seen as "the subject of feminist inquiry, not just the object of feminist critique".[10]

In her first book, An Introduction to Womanist Biblical Interpretation, Junior compares feminist and womanist interpretations of the Bible and argues that "womanist biblical interpretation [was] a natural development of African American women engaging in activism instead of simply [as] a response to second-wave feminism".[11] The book offers readers an understanding of how the lived experience of black women influences their interpretations of Christianity.[12] It was one of the first texts to introduce womanist biblical interpretation.[13]

Junior has co-authored a book on Samson with Temple University colleague Jeremy Schipper.[14]

The project and subsequent book, Reimagining Hagar, was inspired by the insistence of some of her students that of all the female biblical characters, Hagar was the most strongly associated with "blackness".[2]

As of 2020, Junior is involved in a research project with Harvard Divinity School titled "The Resurrection of Jarena Lee". Jarena Lee was a Black Christian preacher denied ordination in the 1800s and who, in 2016, was posthumously ordained by the African Methodist Episcopal Church.[3]

Research and Major Publications

Reimagining Hagar: Blackness and Bible

Nyasha Junior's book, Reimagining Hagar: Blackness and Bible was published in 2019. In this book, Junior provides a reception history of the Biblical character Hagar, whose story is found in Genesis 16 and 21. Reimagining Hagar focuses on interpretations of Hagar as a black woman and particularly those interpretations of Hagar that are made by African Americans.[15] Junior examines interpretations of Hagar and how markers of difference like gender, ethnicity, and status intersect in various portrayals of Hagar.[15] In Reimagining Hagar, Junior: "argues that there is an African presence in Biblical texts, identifies and responds to White supremacist interpretations, provides a cultural-historical interpretation that attends to the history of biblical interpretation within Black communities, and provides ideological criticism that uses the African-American context as a reading strategy."[15] Junior has received much praise for this book, with critic Andrew S. Jacobs writing, "In chasing down the ‘mystery of Black Hagar,’ Nyasha Junior uncovers a deeper story: about cultural resistance to the "White default" of the Bible and its continued Orientalist, anti-Black, anti-Jewish, and anti-woman uses."[16] 

Black Samson: The Untold Story of an American Icon

A collaboration between Nyasha Junior and Jeremy Schipper, Black Samson: The Untold Story of an American Icon was published July 1, 2020. The book details how the Biblical character Samson was a figure used to represent individuals who would fight for racial equality in America. Detailing how Samson from Judges 13-16 became a central figure for Black Americans and was used in literature and other means of social revolution to discuss racial inequality in the United States.[17] The book also discusses various other Biblical figures as well as their connections to historical figures such as Frederick Douglas, Ida B. Wells, James Baldwin, Malcom X and Martin Luther King Jr.[17] Junior and Schipper explore the connection between Biblical narratives and their importance in Black American history in an attempt to bridge the gap between the two subjects. English New Testament Scholar Candida Moss has said in a Daily Beast review that the book by "researching previously ignored first-person narratives of enslaved and formerly enslaved people, newspaper articles, modern media, and poetry, they argue that the ambiguities in the Samson story make him an interesting and complicated figure with which to think about race and modes of resisting injustice."[18]

Bibliography

Publications

Articles

Junior has published articles with a variety of media outlets, including:

References
  1. Lankenau, Alexandra (April 17, 2019). "Biblical Scholar Nyasha Junior Visits Meredith". Meredith College. Retrieved November 8, 2020.
  2. "Interview: Nyasha Junior". Women Biblical Scholars. August 29, 2016. Retrieved November 8, 2020.
  3. "Nyasha Junior". hds.harvard.edu. Retrieved October 22, 2020.
  4. "Faculty | College of Liberal Arts". liberalarts.temple.edu. Retrieved October 22, 2020.
  5. Junior, Nyasha (May 28, 2019). Reimagining Hagar: Blackness and Bible. Biblical Refigurations. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-874532-7.
  6. "Nyasha Junior". wsrp.hds.harvard.edu. Retrieved October 22, 2020.
  7. "A simple classroom change to make trans students feel at home (essay) | Inside Higher Ed". www.insidehighered.com. Retrieved October 22, 2020.
  8. Bond, Sarah E. (May 11, 2018). "Blog: What Is "The West"? Addressing The Controversy Over HUM110 at Reed College". Society for Classical Studies. Retrieved October 22, 2020.
  9. Smith, Mitzi J. (2015). I Found God in Me : a Womanist Biblical Hermeneutics Reader. Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers. p. 6. ISBN 978-1-62564-745-0. OCLC 951222454.
  10. Koosed, Jennifer L. (2017), "Moses, Feminism, and the Male Subject", in Sherwood, Yvonne (ed.), The Bible and feminism: Remapping the field (First ed.), Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, p. 228, ISBN 978-0-19-872261-8, OCLC 986824714
  11. Brown, A. Lauren; deClaissé-Walford, Nancy L. (February 1, 2017). "Book Review: Nyasha Junior. An Introduction to Womanist Biblical Interpretation". Review & Expositor. 114: 127–128. doi:10.1177/0034637316689562g. S2CID 152223385.
  12. "Why I'm reading Nyasha Junior". The Christian Century. Retrieved October 22, 2020.
  13. Lovelace, Vanessa (2017). "An Introduction to Womanist Biblical Interpretation by Nyasha Junior (review)". The Catholic Biblical Quarterly. 79 (4): 684–685. doi:10.1353/cbq.2017.0086. ISSN 2163-2529. S2CID 171709641.
  14. Junior, Nyasha (June 2020). Black Samson : the untold story of an American icon. Schipper, Jeremy. New York, NY. ISBN 978-0-19-068979-7. OCLC 1137178467.
  15. Reimagining Hagar: Blackness and Bible. Biblical Refigurations. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. July 23, 2019. ISBN 978-0-19-874532-7.
  16. "AJR Conversations | Reimagining Hagar". ANCIENT JEW REVIEW. Retrieved November 17, 2020.
  17. Black Samson: The Untold Story of an American Icon. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. July 1, 2020. ISBN 978-0-19-068978-0.
  18. Moss, Candida (July 19, 2020). "The Complex and Fascinating History of Black Samson". The Daily Beast. Retrieved November 21, 2020.
  19. Junior, Nyasha. Reimagining Hagar : blackness and Bible (First ed.). Oxford, United Kingdom. ISBN 978-0-19-106250-6. OCLC 1103917753.
  20. Junior, Nyasha. (November 6, 2015). An introduction to womanist biblical interpretation (First ed.). Louisville, Kentucky. doi:10.1111/rsr.13451. ISBN 978-1-61164-630-6. OCLC 965479224.
  21. Engaging the Bible in a gendered world : an introduction to feminist biblical interpretation in honor of Katharine Doob Sakenfeld. Sakenfeld, Katharine Doob, 1940-, Day, Linda., Pressler, Carolyn, 1952- (1st ed.). Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press. 2006. ISBN 978-0-664-22910-8. OCLC 70158516.CS1 maint: others (link)
  22. Women's Bible commentary. Newsom, Carol A. (Carol Ann), 1950-, Ringe, Sharon H. (Expanded ed.). Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press. 1998. ISBN 0-664-25781-X. OCLC 38047996.CS1 maint: others (link)
  23. "Uncompromising Activist: Richard Greener, First Black Graduate of Harvard College - ProQuest" (PDF). search.proquest.com. Retrieved October 23, 2020.
  24. "Modern Black Intellectualism - ProQuest" (PDF). search.proquest.com. Retrieved October 23, 2020.
  25. "AAR/SBL 2019 Review Panel | Imagined Black Death". ANCIENT JEW REVIEW. Retrieved November 12, 2020.
  26. "Me and My Regalia". Feminist Studies in Religion. Retrieved November 12, 2020.
  27. "Game of Queens: A Novel of Vashti and Esther | Washington Independent Review of Books". www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com. Retrieved October 22, 2020.
  28. Junior, Nyasha. "Patricia Arquette's remarks explain why some black women don't call themselves feminists". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved October 22, 2020.
  29. "Conversation with Keri Day by Nyasha Junior |". June 21, 2016. Retrieved October 22, 2020.
  30. "Marla Frederick on Race, Gender, Religious Broadcasting and Social Media |". April 26, 2016. Retrieved October 22, 2020.
  31. Junior, Nyasha (January 6, 2020). "The Story of the Black King Among the Magi". Hyperallergic. Retrieved November 19, 2020.
  32. "Jezebel Isn't Who You Think She Is". Dame Magazine. November 5, 2019. Retrieved November 19, 2020.
  33. "Remembering Cain Hope Felder, Scholar Who Highlighted the Bible's African Presence | Religion & Politics". November 12, 2019. Retrieved November 19, 2020.
  34. "Black Church Taught Me How To Be Black". BuzzFeed News. Retrieved November 19, 2020.

Podcast: Nyasha Junior – Reimagining Hagar: Blackness and the Bible

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