Gale A. Yee (; born 1949) is an American scholar of the Hebrew Bible. Her primary emphases are postcolonial criticism, ideological criticism, and cultural criticism. She applies

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

frameworks to biblical texts. An American of Chinese descent, she has written frequently on biblical interpretation from an

Asian American Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous people ...

perspective. She is the first woman of color to be President of the Society of Biblical Literature.

Early life and education

Yee was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on April 9, 1949. She attended the Academy of Our Lady High School, graduating in 1967. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature in 1973 and a Master of Arts degree in the New Testament in 1975, both at Loyola University of Chicago. She completed her Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1985 in the

Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...

at the University of St. Michael's College in the

Toronto School of Theology The Toronto School of Theology (TST) is an ecumenical consortium of seven theological colleges and is affiliated with the University of Toronto. TST is the largest ecumenical consortium for theological education in Canada. Its seven member schools ...

Career

In 1987, Yee published her dissertation as ''Composition and Tradition in the

Book of Hosea The Book of Hosea ( hbo, , Sēfer Hōšēaʿ) is collected as one of the twelve minor prophets of the Nevi'im ("Prophets") in the Tanakh, and as a book in its own right in the Christian Old Testament. According to the traditional order of most Heb ...

: A Redactional Critical Investigation'' with Scholars Press (Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series 102). From 1998 until 2017, she was the Nancy W. King Professor of Biblical Studies at the Episcopal Divinity School. From 1984 to 1998, she served as Professor of Hebrew Bible and Director of Women's Studies at the

University of St. Thomas St. Thomas University or University of St. Thomas may refer to: *Saint Thomas Aquinas University, Colombia *Saint Thomas Aquinas University of the North, Tucumán province, Argentina *St. Thomas University (Canada), Fredericton, New Brunswick *St. ...

(St. Paul, MN). She is the former general editor of

Semeia ''Semeia'' was a journal published by the Society of Biblical Literature, "devoted to the exploration of new and emergent areas and methods of biblical criticism." Semeia Studies After 2002, the journal Semeia was replaced by the book series S ...

Studies. She and Athalya Brenner have worked together to edit commentaries in the Texts@Contexts series for Fortress Press. On November 19, 2017, Yee was elected as Vice-President of the

Society of Biblical Literature The Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), founded in 1880 as the Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis, is an American-based learned society dedicated to the academic study of the Bible and related ancient literature. Its current stated mis ...

in 2018, leading to the position as President of the SBL in 2019. On November 24, 2019, she delivered the presidential address at the SBL Annual Meeting in 2019 in San Diego, California. She has donated her papers (1966–2014) to the Burke Library ( Columbia University Libraries) at

Union Theological Seminary in New York Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York (UTS) is a private ecumenical Christian liberal seminary in Morningside Heights, Manhattan, affiliated with neighboring Columbia University. Since 1928, the seminary has served as Columbia's co ...

Honors

Yee was honored as a ''qianbei'' ("respected elder") at the 2014 International Congress of Ethnic Chinese Biblical Scholars, received the Graduate Theological Foundation's Krister Stendahl Medal in 2015, and received the Society of Biblical Literature's "Status of Women in the Profession Committee Mentor Award" in 2016. She received an honorary doctorate from Virginia Theological Seminary in 2020. Gale A. Yee was president of the

in 2019.

Works

Books

* * *

Edited

*
The Hebrew Bible: Feminist and Intersectional Perspectives
' (with Athalya Brenner and Archie C. C. Lee), Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2018. OCLC 1007036296 * ''Honouring the Past, Looking to the Future: Essays from the 2014 International Congress of Ethnic Chinese Biblical Scholars'' (with Matthew Coomber and Hugh Page), Shatin: The Divinity School of Chung Chi College, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2016. * ''The Fortress Commentary on Bible: The Old Testament and Apocrypha (with Athalya Brenner),'' Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014. * ''Joshua and Judges''. Texts@Contexts Series (with Athalya Brenner), Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013.

References

External links

Gale A. Yee's CV
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yee, Gale 1949 births 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century Christian biblical scholars 21st-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century Christian biblical scholars Academics from Ohio American academics of Chinese descent American biblical scholars American Marxists Women Marxists American women non-fiction writers Christian feminist biblical scholars Episcopal Divinity School faculty Female biblical scholars Living people Loyola University Chicago alumni Marxist feminists Marxist writers Old Testament scholars University of St. Michael's College alumni Writers from Cincinnati 21st-century American women writers Presidents of the Society of Biblical Literature