A Feminist Companion to Ruth and Esther [Paperback]

The second series of Feminist Companions moves beyond the confines of sex- and gender-specific issues and studies of biblical women. Biblical feminist critics now address contemporary life situations, marginalization and a range of questions once not thought accessible to such critique. Feminist theory has also continued a rapid evolution. Among the topics included in this volume are composition, Torah, Ruth-the-Cat, female networking-together with much else to inform and stimulate female (and male) biblical scholars and non-scholars.

Abbreviations/ List of Contributors/Athalya Brenner/ Introduction/ Part I/ Ruth/ A. Aspects of the Ruth Scroll/ Irmtraud Fischer/ The Book of Ruth: A 'Feminist' Commentary to the Torah?/Bonnie Honig/ Ruth, the Model Emigr??e: Mourning and the Symbolic Politics of Immigration/Carole R. Fontaine/ Facing the Other: Ruth-the Cat in Medieval Jewish Illuminations/Ursula Silber/ Ruth and Naomi: Two Biblical Figures Revived among Rural Women in Germany/Carol Meyers/ 'Women of the Neighborhood' (Ruth 4.17) Informal Female Networks in Ancient Israel/B. Ruth Papers. Orpah Papers, Papers Delivered at the 'Semiotics and Exegesis' Session American Society of Biblical Literature, November 1997/Laura E. Donaldson/ The Sign of Orpah: Reading Ruth through Naive Eyes/Musa W. Dube/ The Unpublished Letters of Orpah to Ruth/Judith E. McKinlay/ A Son is Born to Naomi: A Harvest for Isarel/Athalya Brenner/ Ruth as a Foreign Worker and the Politics of Exogamy/ Roland Boer/ Culture, Ethics and Identity in Reading Ruth: A Respone to Donaldson, Dube, McKinlay and Brenner/ Part II/ Ruth and Esther: Mothers and Daughters/Leila Leah Bronner/ The Invisible Relationship Made Visible: Biblical Mothers and Daughters/Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan/ Black Mother Women and Daughters: Signifying Female Divine Relationships in the Hebrew Bible and African-American Mother-Daughter Short Stories/ Partlª