Are you looking for a high school curriculum that brings to life issues directly related to your students? Would you like to help your students improve their text skills?ÔøΩSex in the TextÔøΩmay be your answer.

A fresh look at the Bible reveals a richness of insight about sex and sexuality For some people, the Bible s perspectives on sex may seem too one-dimensional or antiquated to apply to modern-day life. Others may hold up the Bible as the ultimate moral guideline when it comes to sex and human sexuality. A close reading of the Bible reveals that while its rules and lessons about sex and sexuality may not be applicable to all people at all times, this sacred scripture does offer surprising insight into our modern sexual lives. This intriguing guide demystifies the Bible, synthesizing basic historical, theological, literary and linguistic ideas about the Bible s texts with our modern attitudes about sex. Thoughtful new translation and provocative commentary bridge the divide between biblical authority and our present-day views on gender roles, marriage, sexual orientation, virginity, lust and sexual pleasure. Drawing from Hebrew and Christian scripture, it examines the ways that the language of religion and the language of sex intersect. Now you can discover what the Bible says about sex with no previous background in theology or religious history. This SkyLight Illuminations edition offers insightful and engaging commentary that explains the historical context and religious worldviews of those who wrote the Bible as well as the role their perspectives play in current social debates. You will be encouraged to form your own opinion about what the Bible has to say about sex and gain a deeper understanding of your own sexuality.

“An explosive, fascinating book that reveals how the Bible cannot be used as a rulebook when it comes to sex. A terrific read by a top scholar.” —Bart Ehrman, author of Misquoting Jesus Boston University’s cutting-edge religion scholar Jennifer Wright Knust reveals the Bible’s contradictory messages about sex in this thoughtful, riveting, and timely reexploration of the letter of the gospels. In the tradition of Bart Erhman’s Jesus Interrupted and John Shelby Spong’s Sins of Scripture, Knust’s Unprotected Texts liberates us from the pervasive moralizing—the fickle dos and don’ts—so often dictated by religious demagogues. Knust’s powerful reading offers a return to the scripture, away from the mere slogans to which it is so often reduced.

This book uses the ubiquitous comparison between food and sex as a framework for examining a number of texts from the Hebrew Bible, as well as later readings of those texts and interpretive issues raised by the texts. A range of biblical texts in which both food and sex appear are analyzed in an interdisciplinary fashion with the help of both traditional tools of biblical scholarship and less traditional tools such as Queer studies and cultural anthropology. By utilizing a reading lens that relates food and sex to one another intentionally, rather than treating them separately, the book will among other things question the tendency of readers of the Bible to overstress the gravity of sexual matters in relation to other matters of potential ethical, theological, exegetical and cultural concern, such as food. At the same time, as the title Practising Safer Texts indicates, the book also proposes a pragmatic approach to biblical interpretation that uses strategies of "safer sex" as a sort of loose model. Such an approach assesses texts and readings of the Bible not in a universalizing fashion but rather in terms of their likely effects, for good or ill, on particular readers in particular contexts and situations (just as notions of "safer sex" ask us to assess sexual acts not in a moralizing fashion but, rather, in terms of their likely effects on particular persons.

This text compares two groups of sex laws in the Bible and reveals factors more narrowly focused than the general desire to control social behaviour.

Helene Cixous is widely regarded as one of the world's most influential feminist writers and thinkers. "White Ink" brings together her most revealing interviews, available in English for the first time. Spanning over four decades and including a new interview with the editor Susan Sellers, this collection presents a brilliant, running commentary on the subjects at the heart of Cixous' writing.Here, Cixous discusses her books and her creative process, her views on and insights into literature, philosophy, theatre, politics, aesthetics, faith and ethics, human relations and the state of the world. As she responds to interviewers' questions, Cixous is prompted to reflect on her roles and activities as poet, playwright, feminist theorist, professor of literature, philosopher, woman, Jew. Each interview is a remarkable performance, an event in language and thought where Cixous' celebrated intellectual and poetic force can be witnessed 'in action'. The accessibility of the interview format provides an excellent starting-point for readers new to Cixous, while those already familiar with her work will find unexpected insights and fresh elucidations of her thought.

As a psychoanalyst and author, Lou Andreas-Salome traverses the mystery of sexuality in much of her work. This book, comprised of two texts originally written for adolescents, uniquely explores sexual education and the collision of sexuality and religion across the lifespan.The first piece, "Three Letters to a Young Boy" (1917), is a psychoanalytic fairy tale. The letters offer an interesting version of the evolution of sexual knowledge from childhood through adolescence. The second piece, "The Devil & His Grandmother" (1922), merges sexuality with religion, encapsulating three ages of woman child, to a lost soul and the Devil's bride, to the Devil's Grandmother. Written in charmingly convoluted dialogue, this work has a cinematic, fanciful feel. Both pieces dispense with academic formality and point to a relaxed new phase in Salome's writing life. Interestingly, this tone can also be detected in her blossoming correspondence with Sigmund Freud, which contrasts starkly with her sombre letters to Rainer Maria Rilke.It is with the spirit of free thinking demonstrated in these two selections, perhaps informed by Salome's experimentation with free association, that the reader is transported to a new theatre of Salome's imagination.