Background:
I have a lengthy background, since teaching is my third career. New York City has always been my center of gravity. Long long-ago I was an editor in book publishing - children's books and adult fiction. Never did I edit scholarly books, which may have turned out to be felicitous. My second career was that of a children's book writer: I did a series of picture books about twin bears and more than a dozen so-called "young-adult" novels. These books included They'll Never Make a Movie Starring Me, Mollie Make-Believe, Waiting for Johnny Miracle, and He Will Not Walk With Me. Finally, I went to Union Theological Seminary in New York City (where else?). I put myself through grad school by writing The Phreakers, a series of books about high-school girls who solve crimes with computers. Then I moved to Palo Alto, CA, to teach at Stanford University, where I lived for nine years. Tired of sunlight, convertibles, and beaches, I jumped at the chance to move to Cleveland to teach at CWRU. Good-bye to Shallow Alto.

Interests/Activities:
My main scholarly interests are in religion and gender, religion and film, and the impact of religious practices and beliefs on popular culture. I am the Director of the Women's Studies Program at CWRU. I am also committed to issues of social justice, and toward that goal, I teach a course and work with individual students on aiding the homeless in Cleveland. I have edited a number of books, including Women in the Hebrew Bible (Routledge 1998); Biblical Glamour and Hollywood Glitz (Semeia 74, May 1997); The Bible and Popular Culture, Biblical Interpretation, 2.1 (1994); The Pleasure of Her Text: Feminist Readings of Biblical and Historical Texts (Trinity Press International, 1990). I have published Women, Seduction, and Betrayal in Biblical Narratives (Cambridge University Press, 1997) and am now working on a major project on aging in the ancient Mediterranean World titled Marking Time: A Study of Aging in Antiquity. A new book, Cracking Open the Geode: Facets of Bible in American Culture, will be published by Sheffield Academic Press' Gender Culture, Theory Series in 2001.

Comments:
I am a feminist, a Catholic, and a gourmet cook. I dislike game shows, am suspicious of super-organized people, and consistently vote for losers. I am thrilled to be joining the College Scholars Program because it will give me a chance to work with dynamic and creative students. I think of our CSP as just like me, only younger. I can no longer pull an all-nighter, but I do stay up past the witching hour. Perhaps with my influence on the program, we will start a new religion, or at least a few interesting rituals. My cat MacArthur has asked me to remind you that "Until Cats are Free, None of Us is Free!"