AISG

Deborah Frances Sawyer

Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies, Lancaster University.

Dipartimento di Linguistica, Università di Firenze.

Recapiti:

Via Ersilia 4, 06070 Perugia

tel. 075 5159359

TEMI DI RICERCA

Midrash, Women and Religion, Feminist Theology.

PUBBLICAZIONI

Women and Religion in the First Christian Centuries, London/New York: Routledge, 1996, pp.i-186

God, Gender and the Bible, London/New York: Routledge, 2002, pp.i - 178

A Walk in the Garden: Biblical, Iconographical and Literary lmages of ’Eden, co-edited with Paul Morris, Sheffield Academic Press, Sheffield, 1992, pp.i-327.

Is There a Future for Feminist Theology? co-edited with Diane M. Collier, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999, pp.i-210.

Series Co-Editor: Religion in the First Christian Centuries, London/New York: Routledge 1996-

(Interdisciplinary series with volumes commissioned from scholars in the USA, UK and Australia)

Series titles published to date:

1996 Women and Religion in the First Christian Centuries, Deborah F. Sawyer

1998 The Crucible of Christian Morality, J. Ian H. McDonald

1999 Sacred Languages and Sacred Texts, John F. A. Sawyer

1999 Death, Burial and Rebirth in the Religions of Antiquity, Jon Davies

2000 Teachers and Texts in the Ancient World: Philosophers, Jews and Christians, H. Gregory Snyder

2001 Magic and Religion in the Roman World: Pagans, Jews and Christians, Naomi Janowitz

2001 Holiness: Rabbinic Judaism and the Greco-Roman World, Hannah Harrington

Commissioned

Conversion in the First Christian Centuries , David Sim

‘God As Mother: A Necessary Debate’, New Blackfriars, Vol.65, Nos 769/770 (July/August, 1984), pp. 319-322.

'Whence the Feet?' Journal of Jewish Studies, Vol.XXXVI, No.1 (Spring 1985), pp.61-69.

‘The Reign of God’, Guidelines to the Bible, Vol.5, part 3, edited by J. Rogerson and C. Rowland, London, September-December 1989, pp.74-98.

‘The Story of Mary: Luke’s Version’, New Blackfriars, Vol.70, No.833 (December, 1989), pp.555-564.

‘Feminist Interpretation’, A Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation, edited by R.J.Coggins and J.L. Houlden, SCM Press, London, l990, pp.231-234.

‘Heterodoxy and Censorship: Some Critical Remarks on Wertheimer’s Edition of Midrash Aleph Beth’, Journal of Jewish Studies, Vol. XLII, No.1 (Spring 1991), pp.115-121.

‘The New Adam in the Theology of St Paul’, A Walk in the Garden: Biblical, Iconographical and Literary Images of Eden, Paul. M. Morris and Deborah F. Sawyer (eds), Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992, pp.105-116.

‘Resurrecting Eve? Feminist Critique of the Garden of Eden’, A Walk in the Garden: Biblical, Iconographical and Literary Images of Eden, Paul. M. Morris and Deborah F. Sawyer (eds), Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992, pp.273-289.

‘Identity and the ‘Other’: The Emergence of Christianity’, New Blackfriars, January, 1994, pp.39-51.

‘Water and Blood: Birthing Images in John’s Gospel’, Words Remembered, Texts Renewed.

Essays in Honour of John F.A. Sawyer, J. Davies, G. Harvey and W. Watson (eds), Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995, pp.300-309.

‘The Church: Egality or Patriarchy?', Women, Power and Resistance. An lntroduction to Women’s Studies, T. Cosslett et al (eds), Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1995, pp.58-68.

‘Gender Play and the Bible: The Many Faces of Judith’, Essen: University-GH Essen, LAUD papers, series A, no.480, 1999, pp.1-14.

‘Gender Play and Sacred Text: A Scene from Jeremiah’, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, issue 83 (1999), pp.99-111.

'Disputed Questions in Biblical Studies: A Male Bible?', Expository Times Vol.112 No.11 (August 2001), pp.366-69.

'Gender Strategies in Antiquity: Judith's Performance', Journal of Feminist Theology 28 (September 2001), pp.9-26.

'Feminism', in J.F.A. Sawyer and J.M.Y. Simpson (eds), Concise Encyclopedia of Language and Religion, Oxford: Elsevier Science, 2001, 248-49.

'Mary Daly', in J.F.A. Sawyer and J.M.Y. Simpson (eds), Concise Encyclopedia of Language and Religion, Oxford: Elsevier Science, 2001, pp.418-19.

'Dressing up/Dressing Down: Power, Performance and Identity in the Book of Judith', Theology and Sexuality, No.15 (September 2001), pp.23-31.

'John 19.34: From Crucifixion to Birth, or Creation?', in Feminist Companion to the New Testament and Early Christian Writings: Johannine Literature, ed. Amy-Jill Levine, London/New York: Continuum, 2002.

'Biblical Gender Strategies: The Case of Abraham', in New Perspectives on Gender and Religion, eds Ursula King and Tina Beattie, New York/London: Routledge, 2002.

'Pauline Use of Familial Imagery', in The Feminist Companion to the New Testament and Early Christian Writings: Pauline Literature, ed. Amy-Jill Levine, London/New York: Continuum, 2002.

1985 World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, Jewish Mysticism seminar paper.

1984 British New Testament Society, paper: ‘Characterization in Luke’s Infancy Narratives’

1987 International Organization for Old Testament Studies, Leuven, Hebrew Bible, seminar paper

1989 British Association of Jewish Studies, Cambridge, plenary paper: ‘Censorship in Jewish texts: Wertheimer’s edition of Midrash Aleph Beth’

1990 British Association of Jewish Studies, Edinburgh, plenary paper, ‘Matriarchy and Oppression in Judaism: attitudes to women in Midrash Aleph Beth’

1990 nternational History of Religion, Rome, seminar participant Women and Religion section

1993 Catholic Theological Association, Leeds, invited plenary paper, ‘Identity and the Other: the Emergence of Christianity’

1996 Religion and Gender Colloquium, University of Bristol, plenary paper: Virgins, Wives and Eunuchs: Gender Paradigms in Antiquity'.

1997 Department of Religions and Theology, University of Manchester Research seminar: ‘Gender as Performance: A Paradigm from Jeremiah’

1999 Invited participant) Duisberg, Germany: Linguistic Agency of the University of Duisberg, plenary paper: ‘The Many Faces of Judith’

2000 Invited participant: Consultation on the Future of the Study of Theology and Religions, Cambridge, UK

2001 Invited to participate in the international colloquium,: 'Breaking New Ground - Methodological Innovations in the Study of Religion', Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Bristol, paper: 'Exploring gender bending as a theological strategy - some biblical examples'

2002 Invited participant: Religion and Law colloquium - in memory of David Daube, University of California, Berkeley, paper: 'A Critique of Daube's exposition of Women in Biblical Law and Narrative'.

2002 'Gender as a Biblical Strategy', Erhardt Seminar, University of Manchester.

American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature - Joint Annual Meetings

1996 San Francisco:Women in the Biblical World section: ‘Gender and Meaning in Sacred Texts’

1998 Orlando: 2 papers

History of Christianity Section ‘Divine Parenting and Infantile Believers’

Women in the Biblical World section ‘The Figure of Judith and Counter-cultural Gender Play’

1999 Boston, Mass.: 2 papers

Bible and Cultural Studies section ‘The Deconstructed Male: A Biblical Theme’

Pauline Epistles section ‘Forever Young - Children, Fathers and Bodies in the Pauline Epistles’

2000 Nashville, Tennessee:

Reading, Theory and the Bible section: 'Dressing Up/ Dressing Down - Power, Performance and identity in the Book of Judith.'

Future Research

1.Commentary on Judith for Blackwell's Bible Commentary Series.

3. Further contributions to the The Feminist Companion to the New Testament and Early Christian Writings Series.

2. En-visioning Gender in the Ancient World - a volume exploring gender constructs in antiquity and applying contemporary gender theory to explain modernity's problematic transposition of fluid gender concepts into fixed polarities. A number of publishers have expressed enthusiasm about publishing such a volume.

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