Dean Jan Love has announced the appointment of Musa W. Dube as professor of New Testament, beginning fall 2021. This is the third hire of a successful cluster search Candler undertook this year in the area of biblical studies.
Currently professor of New Testament in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Botswana, Dube studied New Testament at the University of Durham, earning a master of arts, and at Vanderbilt University, earning a PhD. Particularly known for her work as a postcolonial feminist theologian, her research interests include gender, postcolonialism, translation, and HIV and AIDS studies. Her research has been supported by awards from the John Templeton Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the World Council of Churches, and the Society for Biblical Literature, among others. In 2011, she received a Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, one of academia’s most prestigious funding institutions.
Dube has authored 262 academic works, published in journals, books, encyclopedias, educational modules, and magazines, and has edited eleven volumes. Her first book, Postcolonial Feminist Interpretation of the Bible (Chalice Press, 2000), challenges the often oppressive and patriarchal Western interpretations of biblical texts and offers an alternative, less imperial interpretation that attends to and respects needs of women. Her book The HIV and AIDS Bible: Some Selected Essays (Scranton Press, 2008) examines the HIV/AIDS crisis in light of biblical and ethical teachings and argues for a strong theological presence alongside economic, social, and political efforts to deal with the disease.
The 2017 winner of the international Gutenberg Teaching Award, Dube has given up to 162 papers in at least twenty-six countries, and has served in institutions in Switzerland, the U.S., Germany, and South Africa as well as her native Botswana. She received an honorary doctorate from Stellenbosch University (South Africa) in 2018.
Candler will officially welcome her to the faculty in fall 2021.
Photo: Stefan F. Sämmer for Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz