Bernadette Brooten, the Kraft-Hiatt Professor of Christian Studies at Brandeis University, will present the Classics Depatment's Winslow Lecture on Wednesday, April 30, at 4:10 p.m. in the Red Pit (Kirner-Johnson Hall). Her topic is "Slavery's Long Shadow over the Lives of Girls and Women." It is free and open to the public.
Early Christian support for the Roman slave system profoundly shaped the lives of Christian women who were enslaved or who held slaves. Elite persons in the Roman world considered sexual access to enslaved persons to be natural, legal, and customary. While early Christians viewed sexual contact with slave women as sinful, they frequently adopted a "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
Brooten is the author of Women Leaders in The Ancient Synagogue: Inscriptional Evidence and Background Issues (1982) and Love Between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism (1996). She has also published articles on Paul and the Jewish Law, Jewish epigraphy, papyrological and literary evidence for Jewish women's power to initiate divorce in antiquity, and on various topics of ancient Jewish and early Christian women's history. Professor Brooten has been awarded a MacArthur Fellowship; she has also received a Ford Foundation grant for the study of sexual ethics and religious tradition.
For more information, please call or write to Carl A. Rubino (859-4283, crubino@hamilton.edu) in the Department of
Posted April 28, 2003
