Monday, April 6 at Noon: Michele Osherow Presents Work-in-Progress for CURRENTS Series
Research highlights women's 17th-century embroidery
CURRENTS: Humanities Work Now with Michele Osherow, Associate Professor (English)
Location
Performing Arts & Humanities Building : 216
CURRENTS: Humanities Work Now with Michele Osherow, Associate Professor (English) – Online Event
Date & Time
April 6, 2026,12:00 pm–1:00 pm
Description
The Dresher Center's CURRENTS: Humanities Work Now lunchtime series showcases exciting new work in the humanities in a dynamic and inter-disciplinary setting.
Advanced registration for lunch is first come, first basis.
Keeping the Girls in Stitches: Seventeenth-Century Women’s Embroidery as Biblical Commentary
Michele Osherow, Associate Professor, English
Spring 2026 Residential Faculty Fellow
This research considers ways early modern women used their needles to engage with biblical text and characters, offering up alternative readings of narratives and challenging dominant interpretations head-on. Women’s embroidered pictures of the Bible were not bound to scriptural accuracy; they freely inserted characters into stitched scenes or juxtaposed narratives: what emerges is a stunning complexity of material very much in keeping with the textual intricacies of the Bible itself. I’ll demonstrate this with a few focused examples, showing how the needlework riffs on biblical narrative, religious commentary, and addresses social and political interests.
Join via WebEx: https://umbc.webex.com/umbc/j.php?MTID=m6004cdd76ae5d33010f8426212ee6ed1
Posted: April 1, 2026, 2:41 PM
