February 7 Jewish Studies Lecture: Tracy Lemos
February 03, 2011
The Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies announces a lecture
Abstract: This paper will address issues related to masculinity and status by examining the depiction of eunuchs in ancient Mesopotamia and ancient Israel. It will demonstrate that the status of the eunuch was a complex and ambivalent one that speaks directly to the multivalent, sometimes contradictory nature of both gender conceptions and status itself in the ancient Near East and beyond.
Tracy M. Lemos received her undergraduate degree in Judaic Studies from Brown University and her Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Yale University. She is the author of Marriage Gifts and Social Change in Ancient Palestine: 1200 BCE to 200 CE, published by Cambridge University Press, and has also written articles on the connection between shame and mutilation, the scholarly discourse surrounding Israelite religion, and the refashioning of gender ideas in contexts of warfare and migration. She is currently an assistant professor of Religious Studies at Rhodes College in Memphis, TN.
Event is free and open to the public. To request a complimentary lunch or for more information, contact dakirsch@umd.edu.