Dr. Wendy Doniger of the University of Chicago will present the annual Danforth Lecture at Hope College on Wednesday, April 5, at 3:30 p.m. in Winants Auditorium of Graves Hall.
The public is invited. Admission is free.
Doniger will present "Carnal Knowledge and Carnal
Ignorance: Cross-Cultural Mythology of Sexual Deception."
Doniger has been at the University of Chicago
since 1978, and is the Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service
Professor of the History of Religions, in the Divinity
School, the Department of South Asian Languages and
Civilizations, and the Committee on Social Thought. She has
also taught at Harvard, Oxford, the School of Oriental and
African Studies at the University of London, and at the
University of California at Berkeley.
She first trained as a dancer under George
Balanchine and Martha Graham, and then went on to complete
two doctorates, in Sanskrit and Indian studies, from Harvard
and Oxford.
Among her many books are "Hindu Myths: A
Sourcebook, translated from the Sanskrit," "Women,
Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts" and "Splitting the
Difference: Gender and Myth in Ancient Greece and India."
Her most recent edited books include "Off with Her Head!
The Denial of Women's Identity in Myth, Religion, and
Culture." She has also published more than 180 articles and
many reviews.
In 1984 Doniger was elected president of the
American Academy of Religion, in 1989 a fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, in 1996 a member of
the American Philosophical Society and in 1997 president of
the Association for Asian Studies. She has served on the
International Editorial Board of the Encyclopedia Britannica
and on the board of "Daedalus." In 1992 she was awarded the
Medal of the College de France.
The lecture is sponsored by the college's
department of religion with support from an endowment
established by the Danforth Foundation of St. Louis, Mo.
The scholars who have visited the college in the past as
Danforth lecturers have included Dr. Lewis B. Smedes of
Fuller Theological Seminary, Dr. Martin E. Marty of the
University of Chicago Divinity School, Dr. Margaret A.
Farley of Yale Divinity School and Dr. Alan Segal of Barnard
College at Columbia University.