Rob Zaretsky’s piece in Inside Higher Ed proposes trigger warnings for a number of pieces of classic literature. Given my field, I particularly appreciated his treatment of the Book of Job:
Anonymous’ “The Book of Job”
“Are you sure this is part of the Bible?” asked many respondents, who also exhibited intense unease with God’s actions, as they did with Job’s questions. The mounting suspense in waiting for God to reply adversely impacted many students (as did the irritation factor supplied by Job’s friends).
While the groups’ expectations were raised when a voice came from the whirlwind, they were deflated by the voice’s answers — which, according to one respondent, weren’t answers at all. (“Like my parents, only worse.”) At the end of the session, a palpable sense of dread, along with isolated cases of fear and trembling, were in evidence — all matters of concern for our office.
Click through to read the rest of the article. There have been other recent articles on trigger warnings and the Bible by Valerie Strauss and Elissa Strauss.
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