Open AccessTeaching Mark through a postcolonial optic
Author(s) -
Jeremy Punt
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
hts teologiese studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.282
H-Index - 15
eISSN - 2072-8050
pISSN - 0259-9422
DOI - 10.4102/hts.v71i1.2970
Subject(s) - gospel , hybridity , ambiguity , ambivalence , interpretation (philosophy) , context (archaeology) , sociology , framing (construction) , epistemology , aesthetics , philosophy , history , literature , art , linguistics , anthropology , psychology , psychoanalysis , archaeology
This contribution explores the potential value of a postcolonial approach for teaching Mark’s gospel. Investigating a number of texts from the gospel, it asks to what extent a postcolonial optic implies a different approach to the gospel, what it adds and where challenges exist. Teaching with a postcolonial optic entails framing the gospel in its 1st-century imperial context and focusing on the ambivalence and ambiguity of imperial rule, investigating texts with attention to hybridity and mimicry in particular. Teaching the Gospel of Mark through a postcolonial optic opens up new possibilities for interpretation and contextualisation, but at the same time poses certain challenges, pedagogically and otherwise