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Dr Angela Sawyer

Head of Biblical Studies, Associate Academic Dean, Senior Lecturer - ACOM
PhD; MDiv; Grad Dip Ed (Secondary); BA (Social Science)

Angela joined ACOM (Australian College of Ministries) in 2023 where she is currently Head of Biblical Studies and Associate Academic Dean. Prior to this she was a faculty member and Dean of Students at Stirling College (University of Divinity). Her focus in teaching has been Hebrew Bible and innovative units on Trauma Hermeneutics and Transformation in the Bible. 

Angela received her PhD through the University of Divinity, Whitley College. Her thesis explored the relationship between the theological theme of exile in Deutero-Isaiah in relation to the dynamic of church-leavers in Australia today. Isaiah remains an ongoing area of research and teaching interest. Angela’s scholarship engages modern critical methods such as feminist, postcolonial and ecological criticism as well as the intersection between Bible and trauma informed pedagogy. Her prior study in education and social sciences continues to inform an interdisciplinary approach to biblical studies. 

Publications
Current Work

  • 2023

    “Deutero-Isaiah’s Daughter Zion as Survival Literature: Terror Management Theory.”

    In When Psychology Meets the Bible, edited by Heather A. McKay, and Pieter van der Zwan, Sheffield Phoenix, 2023.

  • 2021

    “Desolate, devastated, Redeemed, Restored: Feminist visions of Daughter Zion in the Australian Context.”

    In Terror in the Bible: Rhetoric, Gender, and Violence. International Voices in Biblical Studies Series. Ed Monica Jyotsna Melanchthon and Robyn Whitaker. 89-105. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2021.

  • 2020

    “Comfort the Waste Places, Defend the Violated Earth: An Ecofeminist Reading of Isaiah 51:1–52:6 and Tracy Chapman’s Song “The Rape of the World”.

    Journal for Religion, Film and Media 6/2, (2020): 21-33.

  • 2020

    “Prophet as Comedian: Satire and Politics in a Dangerous World.”

    Colloquium 52, no. 1 (July 2020): 67-85.

  • 2016

    “Ex-Churched in Secular Exile.”

    Zadok Papers Summer 2016/17: 8-12.

  • 2006

    • Book Review of Alan Jamieson, Jenny McIntosh and Adrienne Thompson, Five Years On: Continuing Faith Journeys of those who left the church (Wellington: The Portland Trust, 2006)

    in Australian Journal of Mission Studies 5 no.2 (Dec 2011): 97-100.

Areas of Interest
  • Hebrew Bible Prophets
  • Daughter Zion
  • Exile
  • Trauma informed pedagogy
  • Secularism and Post secularism
  • Violence in the Bible
Research Strengths
  • Hebrew Bible
  • Isaiah
  • Trauma hermeneutics and biblical texts
  • Feminist criticism
  • Post church sociological dynamics
Currently working on
  • The relationship between trauma and pedagogy

 

  • Trauma texts in the Hebrew Bible and humour responses