Website:
Biography:
I completed masters and doctoral studies in New Testament and Early Christian Origins at Harvard Divinity School and have remained active in my fields for nearly four decades. I worked as an academic administrator, mainly as a registrar, at a number of colleges in Massachusetts and Vermont. I reluctantly retired in late 2017 after my job was eliminated suddenly in 2013 and I was unsuccessful landing a new position. For three years, I conducted research on the survival of the soul after death and self-published my book, Paranormal, in 2015. In October 2015, I launched a website, WisdomWordsPPF, and have been posting evidence-based blogs twice a month in three areas: my scholarly research on women in antiquity, New Testament, and early church history; social justice issues from a progressive, feminist perspective; and insights from Paranormal. I am now giving lectures and leading discussions, retreats and workshops at retirement communities, churches, colleges, libraries, conference centers and other venues, and I volunteer for Estey Organ Museum in Brattleboro, Vermont; the New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, Mass.; and Senior Solutions, Springfield, Vermont. I sing in the Brattleboro Concert Choir and the choir of St. Michael's Episcopal Church, Brattleboro.
Current research areas:
For blog posts: social justice issues, especially how other Western democracies solve problems that we in the US seem unable to solve. For lectures and discussions: the women around St. Paul; archaeological observations from Pauline cities. For retreats: the worship and legacy of Mary, the mother of Jesus.
Recent scholarly activity:
Lecture, “Archaeological Revelations from the Ancient Cities of Philippi and Corinth,” Atria Woodbriar, October 28, 2019, Falmouth, Mass.
Recent publications:
Review, Catherine M. Chin and Caroline T. Schroeder, editors, Melania: Early Christianity through the Life of One Family (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2017), in Anglican and Episcopal History, Vol. 88, No. 2 (June 2019) 206-07
Review, Elizabeth A. Johnson, editor, The Strength of Her Witness: Jesus Christ in the Global Voices of Women (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2016), in Anglican and Episcopal History, Vol. 86, No. 4 (December 2017) 447-49
Review, John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century (Thirty-Fifth Anniversary Edition; Foreword by Mark D. Jordan; Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2015), in Anglican and Episcopal History, Vol. 86, No. 4 (December 2017) 482-84
Forthcoming research:
Review, Maria E. Doerfler, Jephthah’s Daughter, Sarah’s Son: The Death of Children in Late Antiquity (Oakland, Calif.: University of California Press, 2019), in Anglican and Episcopal History, submitted
Review, Jenn Cianca, Sacred Ritual, Profane Space: The Roman House as Early Christian Meeting Place (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018), in Anglican and Episcopal History, submitted
Review, Lynn H. Cohick and Amy Brown Hughes, Christian Women in the Patristic World: Their Influence, Authority, and Legacy in the Second through Fifth Centuries (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2017), in Anglican and Episcopal History, submitted
Other activities:
Secretary and Docent Coordinator, Estey Organ Museum, Brattleboro, Vermont
Board member, Senior Solutions (the Area Agency on Aging for Southeastern Vermont), Springfield, Vermont