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 Lucia
Chiavola Birnbaum, Ph.D., is a multicultural
historian whose Liberazione della Donna:
Feminism in Italy won an American Book
Award from the Before Columbus Foundation
in 1987. Her subsequent exploration of submerged
beliefs and negated cultures, Black Madonnas:
Feminism, Religion and Politics in Italy
(Northeastern University Press, 1993; Italian
edition, Black Madonnas. Femminismo.
Religion e Politica inItalia. Bari,
Palomar Editrice, 1997) has been acclaimed
by scholars ranging from Harvey Cox of the
Harvard Divinity School to feminist scholar
Donna Haraway, poets, multicultural historians,
anthropologists,sociologists, and cultural
theorists. A Gramscian Marxist study of
vernacular beliefs, it has been called "a
daring multi- and supra-disciplinary work,"
"groundbreaking," and an "inspiring analysis
of submerged knowledges for contemporary
democratic movements." In October 1998,
Lucia Birnbaum received the prestigious
Valitutti Award for non-fiction for Black
Madonnas. In 2001, she published Dark
Mother: African Origins and Godmothers
with iuniverse press.
In 1996, for her books and work for a just
world, Dr. Birnbaum was inducted into the
International African American Multicultural
Educators Hall of Fame. She serves on the
Board of Directors of the Italian Research
and Study Program for the International
Area Studies at UC Berkeley.
Lucia holds a doctorate in European and
U.S. history from the University of California
at Berkeley. A founder of the Peace and
Freedom Party in 1967, she was an assistant
professor of U.S. history at San Francisco
State University, a few days from achieving
tenure when she was fired for participating
in the student/professor strike against
racism and imperialism. Thereafter an independent
scholar, she frequently travels to Italy
for research and teaches and lectures in
the U.S.
In May 2002, Lucia was awarded Serpentina's
Enheduanna Award for Excellence in Women-Centered
Literature.
Women's
Spirituality Program
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