Dr. Jessica Ann Hughes
Writer / Speaker / Professor of English
Welcome…
There’s an old story that begins, “One day, when Jesus was teaching, a lawyer stood up to test him.
“Teacher,” the lawyer asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“What does the Law say?” Jesus replied. “How do you read it?”
As an English Professor, that might be my favorite question in the entire Bible.
When Jesus asks the lawyer about his reading of the Law, he is talking about the Torah, the first 5 books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. But most of those books aren’t “laws”… they’re stories. They’re the stories of complicated, broken people and a mysterious God’s unceasing love.
When Jesus asks, “What does the law say” and “How do you read it,” he’s asking questions fit for a literary classroom. He’s suggesting that creative reading is the foundation for living well in the world that God has made. He might even be suggesting that reading well is part of the secret to eternal life.
In this vein, my work centers on how stories shape our imaginations to form lives of justice, grace, and peace. I’m particularly interested in how fiction makes old stories new, be that in the novel’s characterization habits that work to re-enliven Jesus for Victorian readers…or in Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan that helps the lawyer re-imagine the law he knows so well.
Interested? Explore the site to learn more about my writing, speaking, and teaching.
grace & peace,
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Writer / Speaker / Professor of English Literature
Writer
& the American environmental tradition
Speaker
Jessica makes sense of complexity in ways that are engaging and accessible for all audiences, challenging them to find renewed faith, joy, and wonder in their own experiences.
Professor
With teaching experience in high schools & colleges around the globe, Jessica fosters intellectual engagement & practical understanding through her teaching & course design.
Topics, Issues, Questions & News
Re-Thinking Resources for the Liberal Arts: Program Design
This summer I was tasked with re-imagining the Communication Major at Holy Cross College. The nature of the Communication Major has been unclear for a number of years. In the past, it focused largely on film and cultural studies, but lacked courses on the technical...
Solving Real World Problems with Writing: Introducing Joey the Spotted Turtle!
For my “Literature and the Environment” class (spring 2018), I tasked my students with a highly open-ended project. As a class community, they needed to develop a body of writing that would raise awareness about the St. Joesph River and encourage our local community...
Mixing Water with Wine—Report on The Conference on Christianity and Literature
Last weekend I escaped the very brown and cold upper-Midwest for Oregon, where I presented a paper on Tim Winton’s Dirt Music at the Western Region’s Conference on Christianity and Literature. The conference focused on the sacred/secular divide as represented in...