Julian Andres Gonzalez Holguin
As a biblical scholar and educator, Julian Andres, Ph.D, seeks to connect the practice of biblical interpretation with the issues of social justice, migration, and violence. He sees the classroom as a creative and liberating space where a learning community engages the biblical text and the world. He teaches about using critical perspectives to understand the role of readers in the interpretation of religious traditions.
Subjects: Education, Gender & Sexuality, Religion
Biography
Julian Andres is a Colombian scholar who migrated to the United States seeking education in religious studies. He sees education as a human right. In the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and considers education as fostering the principles of freedom of thought, conscience, and expression. In the classroom, education should promote understanding, tolerance, and friendship among individuals and communities of different racial, socio-economic, and religious backgrounds.Julian seeks to expose students to a wide variety of approaches to the biblical text, to challenge traditions of reading that are considered dominant and the official and legitimate hermeneutical methodologies. and to design collaborative learning experiences where students become responsible readers of the Bible.
Education
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Ph.D, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, 2015
M.Div, Baylor University, Waco, 2010
Electric Engineering, Universidad Javeriana, Colombia, 2006
Areas of Research / Professional Expertise
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Julian's research focuses primarily on cultural and theological appropriations of scripture, which he analyzes through the lenses of cultural studies and reception history. The combination of cultural and reception history underlines the fact that biblical interpretation is never ideological neutral. Neither is the Bible a static artifact, but rather it is a discursive object that is continually recreated and reflected by each receiving community in its own time and place. His current research on the Bible and its history of interpretation focus on the ways Christian and Jewish interpretations establish normative views on sovereignty, otherness, and migration and imagine alternatives readings that establish connections between the symbolic import of biblical narratives and socio-political realities. In his book "Cain, Abel, and the Politics of God," he takes into account the knowledge from other disciplines that can contribute to the understanding of Gen. 4:1-16. Julian uses insights from scholars in political science, psychology, and philosophy.
Personal Interests
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Living in the Bay Area, California, offers daily opportunities for hiking, walking, and exploring nature. Julian Andres enjoys yoga, exercising, and discovering restaurants with good Latin American food. Films are part of his hobbies, specially those with philosophical content, which he watches with his wife, Viviana. Lately he spends most of his free time with his new daughter, Samara :).
Books
Articles
Lev. 24:10-13: An Outsider Perspective
Published: Nov 11, 2015 by Hebrew Studies
Authors: Julian Andres Gonzalez Holguin
Subjects:
Religion
This paper explores the text from the perspective of the outsider. By looking at the story of the so-called blasphemer, I bring up the issues of community boundaries that affect the way he is portrayed. How the narrative describes this person introduces tensions between him and the community. After considering the biblical text, I explore a recent case where an outsider pays the consequences of misspeaking and ends up deported to his homeland.
News
Cain and Abel in Visual History
By: Julian Andres Gonzalez Holguin
This summer 2017, I will be traveling and visiting museums in Europe this summer to continue my investigation into the history of interpretation of the story of Cain and Abel. I will be looking at painting, statutes, and religious building in order to reflect on the scenes artists focus when visually interpreting the story, the bodies of the brothers as artist usually represent Abel as white and Cain as not-white, the face of Abel during the moment of killing and the connection between violence and sexual arousal, and finally the issue of the absence of the deity and how artists deal with this concept in their depeictions of the story.