Vanessa Lovelace

I teach Hebrew Bible/Old Testament courses in a historically Black theological setting. I am also an ordained preacher and teacher in the United Church of Christ. My research and teaching interests include interpreting biblical texts using feminist theory of gender and nation, particularly feminist studies in the politics of belonging and womanist methodological approaches that include Black women's lived experiences and the interlocking structures of gender, race, sexuality and class in relation to their encounters. My specific research areas include Deuteronomistic History and prophets and prophetic literature in the Hebrew Bible.

I have been published in The [Oxford] Encyclopedia of the Bible and Gender Studies and in the Journal of the ITC. There has been a recent revival in interest in the biblical figure Hagar since the fascination with her by nineteenth and early twentieth century novelists, whose main characters were often named Hagar. I have contributed essays on Hagar in nineteenth and twentieth century literature, especially antebellum southern White feminist authors. I am curious to see where this revived interest in Hagar leads.