Author Dr. Beth Kissileff will discuss “The Way of Women is Upon Me: Underhanded Means of Addressing Marginalization in Genesis” from noon to 1 p.m. Friday, March 19, at the Luann Dummer Center for Women, Room 103, O’Shaughnessy Educational Center, on the St. Paul campus of the University of St. Thomas.
Free and open to the public, the talk is part of the Feminist Friday series of lectures sponsored by the center for women; this month's presentation is co-sponsored the Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning. Bring your lunch; dessert and beverages will be provided.
The title of the lecture is from the matriarch Rachel’s challenge to her father to find the idols she has taken from his house. Kissileff will discuss how Rachel and other females in the Book of Genesis use their marginalized status to create means of acquiring alternate paths to power in a society where women are not able to access power in an official capacity.
Kissileff is the author of a novel, Questioning Return, and received a fellowship from the Corporation of Yaddo for work on a second novel. She also is editing an anthology of academic writings on the Book of Genesis.
She has taught Hebrew Bible, Jewish studies and English literature at Carleton College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, St. Catherine University and the University of Minnesota. She holds a doctorate in comparative literature from the University of Pennsylvania.
More information about the lecture is available by calling the Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning at (651) 962-5780 or visit the center’s Web site.