Karen Jo Torjesen, Dean: History of Christianity; Women's Studies in Religion
Dean, CGU School of Religion
Margo L. Goldsmith Professor of Women's Studies
Ph.D., The Claremont Graduate School
Professor Torjesen's research interests include constructions of gender and sexuality in early Christianity, authority and institutionalization in the early churches, hermeneutics and rhetoric in late antiquity, and comparative study of Greek and Latin patristic traditions. During her tenure as assistant professor of patristic theology at the University of Goettingen (Germany), her book Hermeneutical Procedure and Theological Structure in Origen's Exegesis was published by de Gruyter. Her most recent book is When Women Were Priests: Women's Leadership in the Early Church and the Scandal of their Subordination in the Rise of Christianity.