Desert Daughters, Desert Sons

Rachel Wheeler is assistant professor of spirituality at the University of Portland where she teaches Bible, ecospirituality, contemplative traditions, and arts as spiritual formation. Her degrees include a PhD in Christian spirituality from the Graduate Theological Union, an MA in theology, specializing in monastic studies, from Saint John’s School of Theology, and an MA in English from Humboldt State University. She writes on desert spirituality and ecospiritual practice.

"With Desert Daughters, Desert Sons, Rachel Wheeler gives us an always-needed rereading of the desert fathers and mothers portrayed in the Apophthegmata Patrum or Sayings of the Desert Fathers. With her close readings of sayings from the alphabetical, anonymous, and systematic sayings, she challenges assumptions, peers into the margins, and offers new insights into the 'peripheral women' in early-monastic stories and sayings. She re-stories the texts from a perspective that focuses with new insight mostly on the daughters of the desert."Tim Vivian, Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies, California State University Bakersfield