Inaugural Phyllis Trible lecture series to be held March 18-19 at WFU

By Jacob McConnico
336.758.5237
March 5, 2003

Three speakers in the fields of feminist and womanist theology will give talks during the inaugural “Phyllis Trible Lecture Series” scheduled to take place March 18 and 19 at Wake Forest University. The theme for the series is “Feminist and Womanist Religious Perspectives,” and the lectures will focus on those two parts of the modern religious landscape.

Carol Meyers, the Mary Grace Wilson Professor of Religion at Duke University, will start the series with her talk “A New Eden: Feminist Biblical Studies and the Genesis Tale” at 3 p.m. March 18. Meyers, a specialist in biblical studies and archaeology, is a prominent scholar in the study of women in the biblical world. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College, and a master’s and doctorate from Brandeis University. Meyers, who co-directs Duke’s summer in Israel program, has authored or co-authored eight books and has edited or co-edited five others.

Her book “Discovering Eve” is a landmark study of women in ancient Israel, and her recent reference book “Women in Scripture” is the most comprehensive study made of women in Jewish and Christian scriptures. She has also published two major archaeological reports and is working on two others.

A reception co-sponsored by Meredith College will be held at 5 p.m. March 18, and the lecture series will continue with the talk “Compassionate Respect: A Feminist Approach to Medical Ethics” presented at 7 p.m. by Margaret A. Farley, the Gilbert L. Stark Professor of Christian Ethics at Yale University Divinity School.

Farley, the author of more than 75 articles and chapters of books on medical ethics, sexual ethics, social ethics, historical theological ethics, ethics and spirituality, and feminist ethics, serves on the Bioethics Committee of Yale-New Haven Hospital and the Ethics Committee of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine. She is co-chair of the Yale University Interdisciplinary Bioethics Project and directs the Project on Gender, Faith, and Responses to HIV/AIDS in Africa at Yale University.

On March 19, Katie Cannon, the Annie Scales Rogers Professor of Christian Education at Union Theological Seminary & Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond, Va., will present the lecture “The Pounding of Soundless Heartbeats: A Womanist Critique of the Transatlantic Slave Trade” at 9:30 a.m. at Wake Forest.

Cannon, the first African-American woman ordained in the United Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), is a graduate of Barber-Scotia College and Johnson C. Smith Seminary, and she earned her doctorate from Union Theological Seminary in New York. Cannon focuses her work on the areas of Christian ethics, womanist theology and women in religion and society. She is the author or editor of numerous articles and six books, including “Katie’s Canon: Womanism and the Soul of the Black Community” and “Black Womanist Ethics.”

A panel discussion scheduled for 1:30 p.m. will conclude the series.

The lecture series is named in honor of Phyllis Trible, University Professor of Biblical Studies at the Wake Forest Divinity School, who became one of the school’s first faculty members before its opening in 1999.

Trible graduated from Meredith College in 1954, and then attended Union Theological Seminary. In 1963, she earned her doctorate from Union and Columbia University. She served as the Baldwin Professor of Sacred Literature at Union Theological Seminary from 1981 until joining the Divinity School in 1998. The Wake Forest Board of Trustees elected Trible a University Professor in 2002.

Internationally known as a Hebrew scholar and rhetorical critic, Trible provided expert commentary for Bill Moyer’s public television series, “Genesis: A Living Conversation.” She is the author of the books, “God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality,” “Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives” and “Rhetorical Criticism: Context, Method, and the Book of Jonah.”

The series is sponsored by the university’s Divinity School, the departments of philosophy and religion, the Women’s Health Center of Excellence, the Multicultural Affairs office, the women’s studies program, and the Wake Forest School of Medicine.

In addition, Winston-Salem resident Sylva Billue gave $20,000 to the Divinity School in December to help fund the lecture series for 10 years. Billue served on the College Board of Visitors at Wake Forest from 1992 to 1996, and she has participated in several classes at the university.

Registration for the lectures is $15 and there is a lunch fee of $10 for the noon luncheon on March 19. For a complete schedule of events, visit the lecture Web site.

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