Professor Stephen Prothero Joins BU Humanities Faculty at Annual BUCH Forum
Last Thursday, Professor Prothero participated on a Boston University Humanities Center or BUCH panel along with BU humanities faculty, graduate students, staff, and administrators from across BU’s Charles River campus. Pofessor Prothero talked about discussing difficult texts with students in the classroom, spotlighting his RN106: Death and Immortality course which strives to “teach students about religious traditions and texts that are not their own…and defamiliarize them with their own religious texts and traditions. This can be uncomfortable for many people.”
Emphasizing the importance of argument in a university setting, Prothero distinguished between two modes: argument for the sake of ego and argument for the sake of heaven. “Arguing for the sake of heaven involves listening and responding. It is rooted in the assumption that there are partial truths on both sides of the most important arguments. [And] only heaven has the full truth.” To argue for the sake of heaven is ultimately a communal endeavor, Prothero stressed, and certainly one worth pursuing at the modern American university.
Stream the full forum on Youtube.
