PREACHNG 910
Interpretation and Performance in Christian Preaching
Jerusha Matsen Neal
Description from DukeHub
This course explores the role that embodied performance plays in sermon preparation and analysis. It sketches the broad outlines of Christianity's long conversation around the relationship between rhetoric and revelation, drawing on that conversation to evaluate contemporary models of performative theory and practice. Students will engage texts, audio-visual sermon recordings, their own oral interpretations of scripture, and live sermon events as theological resources. For preachers, the course will provide a variety of performative approaches to the work of textual interpretation in a living community. For budding homileticians, the class supplies strategies for analyzing sermon performances and asks that these future teachers of preaching to construct their own working theologies of the sermon event to guide their pedagogical practice. Instructor consent required.
Skills
- languagesdescription: "conversation" and 1 more
- public speakingAI review: "their own oral interpretations of scripture"
AI-resilient: 2 of 5
- No: Physical, lab or field work
- No: Live work with people
- No: Judgment someone is accountable for
- Yes: A craft you practice with your hands or body · "drawing"
- Yes: Small, in-person format · seminar, 12 seats per section
The checks lean on Microsoft Research, Working with AI (2025), which found generative AI applies least to physical work and hands-on work with people. A signal, not a promise. How the score works