Dr Holly Morse is a Lecturer in Bible, Gender and Culture (School of Arts, Languages and Cultures). She joined the University in 2016, shortly after her doctoral thesis was published by Oxford University Press as part of the Oxford Theology and Religion Monograph series. The book, Encountering Eve’s Afterlives: A New Reception Critical Approach to Genesis 2-4 is now available in print and digital versions. Holly’s teaching includes: RELT30712 - Gender and Sexuality in the Bible; SALC21132 - All About Eve: Encountering the First Woman from Antiquity to Today; RELT62312 Religion and Gender Theory, for which she has won several awards including: Student’s Union Award for Inclusive Teaching Practice, (2021); Outstanding Teaching Award in the Humanities (2020-21); University Teaching Excellence Award for Inclusive Teaching (2021).

Our Graduate Officer, Freya Corrywright recently caught up with Holly to find out more about her inclusive teaching practice. Read the full interview here…

You have put a large amount of time and thought into the entire learning journey for Religion and Theology students, from A Level, through undergraduate and postgraduate, and into career prospects after leaving The University. Why is it so important to provide this comprehensive approach to students’ academic journey?  

I think learning about Religion and Theology is integral to people’s ability to make their way through our society and culture, to better understand people from different places and respect their ideas and perspectives. The greater openness you have for viewpoints and ideas other than your own, the more likely you are to be an effective, responsible member of a society. It’s important to recognize that students are academics too, studying alongside us, but earlier on in their journey. Even if they don’t plan to pursue academia in the long term, while they are here students should feel like a part of our community. They are becoming experts in a field, and in order to respect that journey you have to take a holistic approach to education.  

It is clear you have made your sessions feel like an inclusive and supportive space for your students. How do you approach teaching potentially politically and culturally complex topics like religion and gender to a diverse student population?  

When teaching Biblical Studies I’m careful to make it clear that the Bible is a text that functions in a range of ways. It is scripture and thus a text with divine authority for many but it can also be viewed as a cultural and philosophical document, as literature, or as a historical text rooted in the context of its time. I establish that when we look at the Bible through a academic lens, we aren’t only talking about something that’s at the core of someone’s faith tradition, but that we might be talking about literature or history. In practical terms, I also aim to set up reflection in the classroom around disagreement, and how people can discuss and hold differing views on topics like this and feel safe at the same time. Students tend to be good at laying down and co-creating these expectations when given the opportunity. This helps build a broader sensitivity to difference in the classroom as a whole. 

In your statement you mention your development of a ‘creative form of assessment’ which, from student comments, has clearly caught people’s attention. Could you provide some additional insight into what that looks like, and what aspects of it have been most successful in your eyes?  

In my unit ‘All About Eve: Encountering the First Woman from Antiquity to Today’ we focus on how Genesis 1-5 is received in western culture. One part of the assessment is still a traditional essay, because it’s important that the students feel comfortable and have a chance to use the skills they’ve been developing. Then there is a creative assessment, which is called ‘The Artefact Analysis’. Students are asked to pick a reimagining of the story of Eve and create material that would accompany it, where the artefact is put on display. I encourage students to reflect on what they have chosen and why, and what is engaging about it. In my view, we don’t give students enough control over the topics they study sometimes in HE, and we should. My key aim is to show students why they are doing this form of assessment, and the importance of connecting with different audiences. It’s about developing the ability to write creatively and take multiple and reflective approaches to academic study.  

With the advent of online learning both students and lecturers have had to adapt teaching and learning styles rapidly to a digital space, something you have been quite involved in. What is the secret to an inclusive and adaptable digital teaching environment?  

Delivering digitally prompted us all to review our teaching practice. I found that the key to inclusive online learning is explaining to students the mechanisms by which I will be teaching, aiming for transparency in my approach to teaching digitally. I also found it beneficial to engage with students outside of seminars and lectures – sharing resources and being available if they needed direction.  

It was really interesting to see how it has affected my teaching in a physical space too; I have continued to explain what we will be doing, and the reasons why, in all my classes. Communication is at the heart of inclusivity and promotes a more personal feel to seminars – one where the students can see their lecturer as a person like them, rather than a figure of authority in an educational hierarchy.  

Your recent research papers including the soon to be published ‘Serpentine Saviours and Woke Women’, and ‘Divine Revenge Porn, Slut-shaming, Ethnicity and Exile in Ezekiel 16 and 23’ combine more ‘traditional’ theology with issues prevalent in our current cultural discourse. How much does your research inform the courses you have directed and designed, and what is your approach to ‘research-led teaching’?   

The All About Eve course was based on my book Encountering Eve’s Afterlives, so my teaching was all research-led. The book is focused on alternative interpretations of the Eden story, which comes through in my approach to teaching.  

My fascination with forms of marginalized religious tradition and heretical knowledge means that my own research often becomes a case study for the field I’m teaching. I have recently been awarded AHRC funding for a project that puts church and charity practitioners working against gender-based violence in contact with academia. It’s exciting to include work like this in teaching, to demonstrate how the Bible continues to affect people today. Teaching is an inherently political act, and it is feminist pedagogy that leads me to teach the way that I do – which is reflectively informed by my approach to research. Our current modes of learning and ways of knowing are constructed off the back of a patriarchal society and culture, and for that reason, I feel we must challenge the ways that we do knowledge, learning, and education. And a good starting point for that would be for everyone to read bell hooks’ Teaching to Transgress!  

Any closing thoughts? 

It’s important to recognise that diversity in student identity can go beyond gender, sexuality and race. Students are a diverse population not just in what they want to get out of their course, but also in what their eventual goals are. I want students to know that, if they wanted, they could come and do what I do as an academic, but also, that they are equally valid in their desire to pursue careers outside of the university. It’s important for them to know why the work they do here contributes to that.

Dr Holly Morse’s Top tips to understanding inclusivity:

• Construct your course to be part of student’s holistic educational journey.  
• Trust students with the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of your teaching. If they understand why they are doing a certain task in a certain way, they will more easily engage with it. 
• Regardless of the topic, establishing ‘Ground rules’ for debate and disagreement is vital to making sure everyone in the class feels included and respected. 
• Try not to rely only on the more ‘traditional’ methods of assessment, when there is room for alternatives. Rather than just testing their knowledge, assessments can also help to encourage creativity and to push students to utilise the skills they have been taught in new engaging and challenging ways.

Related

Dr Holly Morse is a Lecturer in Bible, Gender and Culture (School of Arts, Languages and Cultures). She joined the University in 2016, shortly after her doctoral thesis was published by Oxford University Press as part of the Oxford Theology and Religion Monograph series. The book, Encountering Eve’s Afterlives: A New Reception Critical Approach to Genesis 2-4 is now available in print and digital versions. Holly’s teaching includes: RELT30712 - Gender and Sexuality in the Bible; SALC21132 - All About Eve: Encountering the First Woman from Antiquity to Today; RELT62312 Religion and Gender Theory, for which she has won several awards including: Student’s Union Award for Inclusive Teaching Practice, (2021); Outstanding Teaching Award in the Humanities (2020-21); University Teaching Excellence Award for Inclusive Teaching (2021). We chatted to Holly 

You have put a large amount of time and thought into the entire learning journey for Religion and Theology students, from A Level, through undergraduate and postgraduate, and into career prospects after leaving The University. Why is it so important to provide this comprehensive approach to students’ academic journey?  

I think learning about Religion and Theology is integral to people’s ability to make their way through our society and culture, to better understand people from different places and respect their ideas and perspectives. The greater openness you have for viewpoints and ideas other than your own, the more likely you are to be an effective, responsible member of a society. It’s important to recognize that students are academics too, studying alongside us, but earlier on in their journey. Even if they don’t plan to pursue academia in the long term, while they are here students should feel like a part of our community. They are becoming experts in a field, and in order to respect that journey you have to take a holistic approach to education.  

It is clear you have made your sessions feel like an inclusive and supportive space for your students. How do you approach teaching potentially politically and culturally complex topics like religion and gender to a diverse student population?  

When teaching Biblical Studies I’m careful to make it clear that the Bible is a text that functions in a range of ways. It is scripture and thus a text with divine authority for many but it can also be viewed as a cultural and philosophical document, as literature, or as a historical text rooted in the context of its time. I establish that when we look at the Bible through a academic lens, we aren’t only talking about something that’s at the core of someone’s faith tradition, but that we might be talking about literature or history. In practical terms, I also aim to set up reflection in the classroom around disagreement, and how people can discuss and hold differing views on topics like this and feel safe at the same time. Students tend to be good at laying down and co-creating these expectations when given the opportunity. This helps build a broader sensitivity to difference in the classroom as a whole. 

In your statement you mention your development of a ‘creative form of assessment’ which, from student comments, has clearly caught people’s attention. Could you provide some additional insight into what that looks like, and what aspects of it have been most successful in your eyes?  

In my unit ‘All About Eve: Encountering the First Woman from Antiquity to Today’ we focus on how Genesis 1-5 is received in western culture. One part of the assessment is still a traditional essay, because it’s important that the students feel comfortable and have a chance to use the skills they’ve been developing. Then there is a creative assessment, which is called ‘The Artefact Analysis’. Students are asked to pick a reimagining of the story of Eve and create material that would accompany it, where the artefact is put on display. I encourage students to reflect on what they have chosen and why, and what is engaging about it. In my view, we don’t give students enough control over the topics they study sometimes in HE, and we should. My key aim is to show students why they are doing this form of assessment, and the importance of connecting with different audiences. It’s about developing the ability to write creatively and take multiple and reflective approaches to academic study.  

With the advent of online learning both students and lecturers have had to adapt teaching and learning styles rapidly to a digital space, something you have been quite involved in. What is the secret to an inclusive and adaptable digital teaching environment?  

Delivering digitally prompted us all to review our teaching practice. I found that the key to inclusive online learning is explaining to students the mechanisms by which I will be teaching, aiming for transparency in my approach to teaching digitally. I also found it beneficial to engage with students outside of seminars and lectures – sharing resources and being available if they needed direction.  

It was really interesting to see how it has affected my teaching in a physical space too; I have continued to explain what we will be doing, and the reasons why, in all my classes. Communication is at the heart of inclusivity and promotes a more personal feel to seminars – one where the students can see their lecturer as a person like them, rather than a figure of authority in an educational hierarchy.  

Your recent research papers including the soon to be published ‘Serpentine Saviours and Woke Women’, and ‘Divine Revenge Porn, Slut-shaming, Ethnicity and Exile in Ezekiel 16 and 23’ combine more ‘traditional’ theology with issues prevalent in our current cultural discourse. How much does your research inform the courses you have directed and designed, and what is your approach to ‘research-led teaching’?   

The All About Eve course was based on my book Encountering Eve’s Afterlives, so my teaching was all research-led. The book is focused on alternative interpretations of the Eden story, which comes through in my approach to teaching.  

My fascination with forms of marginalized religious tradition and heretical knowledge means that my own research often becomes a case study for the field I’m teaching. I have recently been awarded AHRC funding for a project that puts church and charity practitioners working against gender-based violence in contact with academia. It’s exciting to include work like this in teaching, to demonstrate how the Bible continues to affect people today. Teaching is an inherently political act, and it is feminist pedagogy that leads me to teach the way that I do – which is reflectively informed by my approach to research. Our current modes of learning and ways of knowing are constructed off the back of a patriarchal society and culture, and for that reason, I feel we must challenge the ways that we do knowledge, learning, and education. And a good starting point for that would be for everyone to read bell hooks’ Teaching to Transgress!  

Any closing thoughts? 

It’s important to recognize that diversity in student identity can go beyond gender, sexuality and race. Students are a diverse population not just in what they want to get out of their course, but also in what their eventual goals are. I want students to know that, if they wanted, they could come and do what I do as an academic, but also, that they are equally valid in their desire to pursue careers outside of the university. It’s important for them to know why the work they do here contributes to that. 

Dr Holly Morse’s Top tips to understanding Inclusivity: 

• Construct your course to be part of student’s holistic educational journey.  
• Trust students with the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of your teaching. If they understand why they are doing a certain task in a certain way, they will more easily engage with it. 

• Regardless of the topic, establishing ‘Ground rules’ for debate and disagreement is vital to making sure everyone in the class feels included and respected.
• Try not to rely only on the more ‘traditional’ methods of assessment, when there is room for alternatives. Rather than just testing their knowledge, assessments can also help to encourage creativity and to push students to utilize the skills they have been taught in new engaging and challenging ways. 

Related

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