Date: Sun, 15 Mar 1998 21:11:28 -0600 (CST)
From: cberkowi-AT-bayou.uh.edu (Charlotte Berkowitz)
Subject: Re: Suggested readings on FF and feminist biblical interpretation


Tom, 

Ilana Pardes' _Countertraditions in the Bible:  A Feminist Approach_
(Harvard UP, 1992) is an attempt, from a heterogneous theoretical
perspective, to hear (in the Hebrew Bible) female voices and stories muffled
by the dominant patriarchal discourse.  E.g., when, in Exodus 4: 24-26, the
heroic structure of Moses' tale collapses under sudden attack by "the Lord,"
Zipporah assumes the heroic mantle to confront the attacker and perform a
circumcision meant to save cultural life.  Pardes further points out that
Zipporah is one of a long line of women in Exodus, from within and without
Israel, who heroically defy father-gods to preserve life.  Not only do the
midwives Shifra and Pua refuse to obey the sun-god Pharaoh, who has ordered
them to kill all newborn boys, but Moses' mother colludes with his sister to
hide her son . . . and then the god's own daughter becomes a party to the
deception.  Etc., etc.

Not all her points are as well-developed as one would like, but the book
makes a good, provocative read.        


Best,
CAB


>Charlotte, Kathy, and Diane,
>    Thanks for the reading recommendations and the suggestion on
>teaching Kristeva. Charlotte, I am not familiar with Pardes' work. Can
>you tell me something more about it? Diane, do you have the complete
>references for Learner's and Ranke-Heinemann's work?
>     We are in the process of completing our Canadian Winter semester
>and then we will update/reform our Body and the Bible Syllabus. The
>first time we taught the course last summer I included readings from
>Gottwald and Horsley's _The Bible and Liberation_. Most of those
>readings will now be replaced by readings from _The Feminist Companion
>to Reading the Bible: Approaches, Methods, and Strategies_. Having been
>trained in biblical studies by prominent, hard-lined
>"historical-critical" scholars (one of whom once described himself to me
>as "a dyed-in-the-wool historical critic," another who ended our only
>required core course with a categorical mention of "perspectivist"
>approaches to the Bible like "feminism"), I am only very slowly
>de-constructing/reforming/re-imagining otherwise. Moving back to
>biblical studies through phenomenology, semiotics, and feminist theory
>(a long, embodied journey home--but that's another story) has been
>frustrating but FF continues to intrigue and implode my past
>training--along with providing some hopeful glimpses of emancipatory
>potentiality along the way.
>  Our Spring Evening semester begins on May 5th. I will send (and
>thereby "fork ova") our revised syllabus to the FF archives some time
>before then.
>    Tom
>--
>                    DON'T SLOWLY TURN AND WALK AWAY.
>                              ~~~~~~ Break the silence ~~~~~~.
>                    Face the fear.
>                    Stop the terror.
>                    Speak the truth.
>                    Embrace alterity.
>                                    COUNTER HEGEMONY
>
>Tom Craig, Ph.D
>     Email:    aporia-AT-oursquare.com
>     Web:     http://members.tripod.com/~Cesura/
>Visiting  Scholar in the Women's Studies Program (1997-98)
>     Brock University. St. Catharines, Ontario. L2S 3A1
>     Canada
>     905-688-5550 (4290)
>
>
>
>     --- from list french-feminism-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>
>
Dr. Charlotte Berkowitz
Department of English       713-395-2800 ext. 6037
University of Houston       cberkowi-AT-bayou.uh.edu 
Houston, TX 77204-3012




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