Dr. Brigidda Bell
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Assistant Professor of New TestamentPhD, University of Toronto, 2022
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Brigidda is a scholar of early Christianity whose research focuses on the people and ritual practices that animate the texts of the New Testament. Her current project examines the discourse of true and false prophets in early Christian writings, showing how certain behaviours become compelling markers of honesty and expertise for their audiences, while others become indicators of the false prophet. Taking seriously the ways that bodies communicate information, her research brings the embodied nature of human experience into a long history of biblical textual interpretation. As a Latinx scholar and feminist, her thinking is informed by communities of interpretation that emphasize the way bodies inhabit intricate spaces with shifting power dynamics and the hybridity of existence in, and assimilation to, colonized environments.
As a teacher, Brigidda has taught a range of courses in Biblical Studies and the critical study of religion at the University of Toronto, the University of Calgary, and the University of Alberta before coming to Moravian. Aware that the diversity of lived experience that people bring to the table will provide them with different points of entry to conversations, Brigidda’s teaching and mentorship seek to bridge institutional gaps that stem from these differences in her classrooms, workplaces, and communities. She brings several years of experience in developing and implementing mentorship and pedagogical programming to her role.
A mother to two small humans and an ever-shifting number of animals, Brigidda enjoys reading children’s books (as well as other books), playing on the playground, making things with her hands, and being active.
In English, Brigidda pronounces her name as you would a bridge: BRIDGE-ih-dah. In Spanish it is pronounced as you would expect.