Wanda Deifelt
Biography
Wanda Deifelt has been a professor in the Religion Department since 2004, focusing on the topics of Luther and Lutheranism, Creation, and Christology. Some of her course topics include Christian Theology and God and Gender.
She achieved her Ph.D. and Masters of Theological Studies at Joint Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary and Northwestern University Doctoral Program (Evanston, Illinois) and her Bachelor of Arts at Faculdade de Teologia, Escola Superior de Teologica, (Sao Leopoldo, Brazil). She also achieved her Th.D. Honoris Causa at the University of Olso (Olso, Norway).
REL-227-A Luther and Lutheranism
This course closely examines the life and thought of Martin Luther, provides an overview of the development of Lutheran Churches from the Reformation to the present, and explores some of the issues debated in Lutheran Churches today.
REL-485-A Sem: Embodied Theology
What can bodies tell us about god, creation, church, or the world at large? This seminar analyzes how the dualism between mind and body shapes theological ideas and influences our perceptions, often creating hierarchies between the spiritual and material dimensions. The seminar will critically analyze this dualism and explore the implications of the human body as a socio-political, cultural, and religious construction. The understanding of the human body as confluence of time and space gives rise to the notion of embodiment, an awareness of all the places our body inhabits (our physical, social, ecological, communal, and cosmic bodies) and how they are affected by the passage of time. Using the human body as an epistemological category, the seminar will explore theories developed by scholars such as Foucault, Merleau Ponty, Derrida, Butler, Grosz, McFague, Ruether, Althaus-Reid, and others to further explore ethical and theological insights on embodiment.
REL-232-A Christian Theology
A study of teachings basic to the Christian faith using classical and contemporary sources from both the Protestant and Catholic traditions, such as those about God, relations among religions, Jesus, the Church, and creation and its interpretations for today in light of their biblical and historical foundations.
REL-233-A God and Gender
An investigation of how our understanding and experience of gender are connected to our views of God, human beings, and the natural world. The course explores the works of a variety of thinkers and pays special attention to issues raised by feminist theologians who stand both inside and outside the Christian tradition. Possible topics include: language about God, human sexuality, views of women in the Bible, the nature of biblical authority, the feminist movement, the men’s movement, images of nature in Western religious thought, and the ordination of women.
- Ph.D., Joint Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary and Northwestern University Doctoral Program
- M.T.S., Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary
- B.A., Faculdade de Teologia, Escola Superior de Teologia