Education
B.A., Barnard College
M.A., Columbia University
M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D., Yale University
Research
My research and teaching are concerned primarily with the analysis and interpretation of early Christian and Gnostic literature, especially the writings of the Nag Hammadi library, discovered in Egypt in 1945. Although the majority of Nag Hammadi texts were originally composed in Greek between the second and third centuries C.E., they survive only in the fourth-century Coptic versions discovered at Nag Hammadi. My current research focuses on the relation between religious conceptions of gnosis (knowledge) and gender imagery in selected Nag Hammadi texts, including The Gospel of Thomas, The Hypostasis of the Archons, The Gospel of Philip, and Thunder, Perfect Mind. You can find my translation of Thunder, Perfect Mind, with introductory notes at the Diotima website at http://www.stoa.org/diotima/anthology/thunder.shtml. My publications include studies of several Nag Hammadi texts, such as The Gospel of Truth, The Hypostasis of the Archons, and Thunder, Perfect Mind. In 1997, I co-edited The Nag Hammadi Library After Fifty Years: Proceedings of the 1995 Society of Biblical Literature Commemoration, edited by John D. Turner and Anne McGuire, Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 44, Leiden & New York: E. J. Brill, 1997. This volume includes papers presented in 1995 at Haverford College and at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in Philadelphia to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library. My current research and course projects also include a study of religious and artistic representations of Mary Magdalene, as well as a course on Images of Jesus, supported by a Teaching with Technology grant. In 2007 I was selected by the Pennsylvania Humanities Council to serve as a Commonwealth Speaker for 2010-12 on the topic "Re-Imagining Mary Magdalene: Female Witness, Disciple, Icon." Interested organizations can contact the Pennsylvania Humanities Council for more information about PHC-sponsored speaking engagements in 2010-12.
Committee Memberships and Service to Haverford College
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Clerk of the Faculty
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Chair, Committee on Honors and Fellowships
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Co-Chair, Diversity Initiatives Group
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Administrative Advisory Committee
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College Planning Committee
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Presidential Inauguration Committee
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Presidential Search Committee (Humanities Representative)
- Member, Ad Hoc Search in Religion
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Chair, Ad Hoc Search in Classics, 2006
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Humanities Representative, Academic Council
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Chair, Dept. of Religion
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Member, Educational Policy Committee
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Member, Humanities Center Steering Committee
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Coordinator, Concentration in Feminist and Gender Studies
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Chair, Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism Section, Society of Biblical Literature