BOOK NOTE from Wesleyan University's page on recent alumni/ae doings:

Sharp ’85 Finds Irony in Hebrew Scriptures
In her fascinating new study, Irony and Meaning in the Hebrew Bible (Indiana University Press), Carolyn J. Sharp ’85, associate professor of Hebrew Scriptures at Yale Divinity School, suggests that many stories in the Hebrew Scriptures may be ironically intended. By interweaving literary theory and exegesis, she examines the power of the unspoken in a wide variety of texts from the Pentateuch, the Prophets, and the Writings. Her book considers such themes as foreign rulers and the fear of God, the prostitute as icon of the ironic gaze, indeterminacy and dramatic irony in prophetic performance, and irony in ancient Israel’s wisdom traditions.

Sharp pays special attention to how irony can challenge the dominant ways in which the Bible is read today, especially when it touches on questions of conflict, gender, and the other.

Sharp’s research continues to explore the composition, redaction, and rhetoric of Hebrew Scripture texts. She is also the author of Prophecy and Ideology in Jeremiah: Struggles for Authority in the Deutero-Jeremianic Prose; and Old Testament Prophets for Today.