Judith Rich Harris

Judith Rich Harris (born February 10, 1938) is a psychology researcher and the author of The Nurture Assumption, a book criticizing the belief that parents are the most important factor in child development, and presenting evidence which contradicts that belief.

Harris has been a resident of Middletown Township, New Jersey.

Early life, education

Harris spent her early childhood moving around the USA until her parents eventually settled in Tucson, Arizona. The dry climate suited her father, who suffered from ankylosing spondylitis, an autoimmune disease.

Harris graduated from Tucson High School and attended the University of Arizona, and then Brandeis University where she graduated magna cum laude in 1959. Harris was dismissed from the PhD program in psychology at Harvard in 1960, because the 'originality and independence' of her work were not to Harvard's standards. She was granted a master's degree in her field, before departing.

Marriage and illness

She married Charles S. Harris in 1961; they have two daughters (one adopted) and four grandchildren.

Judith Harris (poet)

Judith Harris is an American poet and the author of Night Garden (Tiger Bark Press, 2013), Atonement (LSU, 2000), The Bad Secret (LSU, 2006), and the critical book Signifying Pain: Constructing and Healing the Self Through Writing (SUNY, 2003). Her poetry has appeared in many publications, including The Nation, The Atlantic, The New Republic, Ploughshares, Slate, Southern Review, Image, Boulevard, Narrative, Verse Daily, and American Life in Poetry. She has taught at the Frost Place and at universities in the Washington, D.C. area.

Career

Judith Harris was born in Washington, D.C. and received a B.A. from University of Maryland, her M.A. from Brown University in Creative Writing, and a Ph.D. from George Washington University in American literature. She has taught at George Washington, Catholic University, George Mason University, and American University, and held residencies at VCCA and Frost Place.

In 2000, LSU Press published Atonement and her second book, The Bad Secret, in 2006. Her renowned critical book, Signifying Pain: Construction and Healing the Self through Writing published by SUNY Press and is taught in many graduate seminars.Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, coauthor of Cherishment: A Psychology of the Heart, said, "Signifying Pain will play an important role in the growing literature on psychoanalysis in education and in the college classroom, as it both shows and tells what a psychoanalytically informed sensibility can bring to understanding poetry. To be able to signify pain is a human triumph; to write about the signifying is, too."

Book of Judith

The Book of Judith is a deuterocanonical book, included in the Septuagint and the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christian Old Testament of the Bible, but excluded from Jewish texts and assigned by Protestants to the Apocrypha. The book contains numerous historical anachronisms, which is why many scholars now accept it as non-historical; it has been considered a parable or perhaps the first historical novel.

The name Judith (Hebrew: יְהוּדִית, Modern Yehudit, Tiberian Yəhûḏîṯ ; "Praised" or "Jewess") is the feminine form of Judah.

Historical context

Original language

It is not clear whether the Book of Judith was originally written in Hebrew or in Greek. The oldest extant version is the Septuagint and might either be a translation from Hebrew or composed in Greek. Details of vocabulary and phrasing point to a Greek text written in a language modeled on the Greek developed through translating the other books in the Septuagint. The extant Hebrew language versions, whether identical to the Greek, or in the shorter Hebrew version, are medieval. The Hebrew versions name important figures directly such as the Seleucid king Antiochus Epiphanes, thus placing the events in the Hellenistic period when the Maccabees battled the Seleucid monarchs. The Greek version uses deliberately cryptic and anachronistic references such as "Nebuchadnezzar", a "King of Assyria," who "reigns in Nineveh," for the same king. The adoption of that name, though unhistorical, has been sometimes explained either as a copyist's addition, or an arbitrary name assigned to the ruler of Babylon.

Judith (1923 film)

Judith is a 1923 Dutch silent film directed by Theo Frenkel.

Cast

External links

Judith (given name)

Judith is a feminine given name derived from the Hebrew name יְהוּדִית or Yehudit, meaning "She will be praised" or "woman of Judea". Judith appeared in the Old Testament as the wife of Esau and in the Apocryphal Book of Judith.

The name was among the top 50 most popular given names for girls born in the United States between 1936 and 1956. Its popularity has since declined. It was the 893rd most popular name for baby girls born in the United States in 2012, down from 74th place in 1960.

Name variants

Alternative forms of the name Judith include: