Naomi Goldenberg


Naomi Ruth Goldenberg is a professor in the at the University of Ottawa. Her regular undergraduate courses include Gender and Religion, Women and Religions, Psychology of Religion and Method and Theory in the Study of Religion. Goldenberg is best known for her work in the areas of Feminist Theory and Religion, Gender and Religion, as well as the Psychoanalytic Theory and Political Theory of Religion. She is one of the early members of the Women's Caucus at the American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature and continues to work on and support scholarship in areas of religion and feminism, psychoanalytic theory, women's issues, gender. Currently, Goldenberg is writing about understanding religions as vestigial states. Her theory demystifies religion in order to continue the feminist critique she articulated in her earlier work.

Early Life and Education

Born in 1947 in Brooklyn, New York, Naomi Ruth Goldenberg grew up in Teaneck, New Jersey. She attended Teaneck High School and graduated with High Honors in Classics from
Douglass College in New Brunswick, New Jersey in 1969. After beginning graduate work in Classics at Princeton University, she switched to Religious Studies at Yale University where she received an M.A. in 1974, an M.Phil. in 1975, and a Ph.D. in 1976. for her graduate work. Goldenberg studied at the C.G. Jung Institute in Zürich, Switzerland during her doctoral program.

Academic Career

Goldenberg is a full professor in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa University of Ottawa where she has been employed since 1977. She served as Director of Women’s Studies from 1989-1992. Her graduate and undergraduate courses cover topics related to psychoanalysis, politics, gender, popular culture and mythology.

Awards and honours

Goldenberg has received many honourable prizes and recognized for her work.

Books