Avaren Ipsen

Avaren Ipsen is a PhD candidate at the Graduate Theological Union in Biblical Literature and is an adjunct Lecturer at UC Berkeley in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies. A wife, mother and student Avaren is also very involved with local grassroots activism. She considers herself to be an "organic intellectual" and a feminist liberation theologian. Her dissertation work is on the Bible and global prostitution. Ipsen along with many other scholars in the field are using the Bible to show that prostitution was accepted by Jesus and that he in fact was nice to prostitutes.

When she is not lecturing on campus or studying, Avaren and her son Gus spend time protesting nuclear power or dress up like “Killer Tomatoes” to educate the public about Genetically Modified Organisms. She was recently appointed to the Berkeley Commission on the Status of Women, a position she hopes to use to further the rights of prostitutes in the Bay Area and around California. "It's very much about the civil rights of women. Should women be jailed for adult consensual sex?"

Avaren can be reached for comment at (510) 849-3073 or aipsen [at] berkeley [dot] edu"> aipsen [at] berkeley [dot] edu