Women's Studies Council brings Pagels to Grand Rapids

Author Elaine Pagels, whose book The Gnostic Gospels was named one of the 20th century's best, will speak at Fountain Street Church in Grand Rapids on Thursday, October 4, at 7 p.m.

The free event is sponsored by the West Michigan Women’s Studies Council, a coalition of area colleges and university founded in 2000 to create a greater awareness of women’s issues in the community.

Pagels earned a doctorate from Harvard University, she led Barnard College’s religion department in the 1970s. As a professor at Princeton University, Pagels wrote her first book, Adam, Eve and the Serpent. That book and the Gnostic Gospels examine the way that women have been viewed in Christian history.

Gnostic Gospels won both the National Book Critic’s Circle Award and the National Book Award and was chosen by the Modern Library as one of the “100 Best Books of the 20th Century.”