Evelyn Torton Beck

Evelyn Torton Beck is a scholar/teacher/activist who pioneered the disciplines of Women’s Studies, Jewish Women’s Studies and Lesbian Studies in the university; she is a founding member of NWSA (The National Women’s Studies Association), and its Jewish and Lesbian caucuses; she was also instrumental in establishing the Madison, Wisconsin chapter of the NLFO (National Lesbian Feminist Organization).

She was professor in Comparative Literature, German, and Women’s Studies at the University of Wisconsin from 1972 to 1984, at which time she became Chair of Women’s Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. Since 2002 she has been Professor Emerita at the University of Maryland and an Alum Research Fellow with the Creative Longevity and Wisdom Initiative at the Fielding Graduate University. In her decades of teaching, she pioneered numerous interdisciplinary courses on topics as diverse as Women in the Arts, Mothers and Daughters, Jewish Women in International Perspective, Women and the Holocaust, Death and Dying in Modern Literature, Lesbian Studies, Gender, Power and the Spectrum of Difference, Healing Women, and Feminist Perspectives on Psychology, among others.

Beck is the author of numerous books and essays focusing on Franz Kafka and the Yiddish Theater (1972), Frida Kahlo, and Isaac Bashevis Singer (with whom she worked closely and whose stories she translated from the Yiddish). She is the editor of Nice Jewish Girls: A Lesbian Anthology (1982/1989).

She has written on multiculturalism and the impact of sexism, anti-Semitism, and homophobia on women’s identity development and has lectured on these themes in Europe, Japan, and across the United States. Interviews with her appear in English, German and Japanese journals. She was invited to discuss Freud’s legacy on the Diane Rehm show and was heard on NPR with a critique of the epithet, “Jewish American Princess” on which she has also written.

She is preparing a collection of her essays and revising her book-length manuscript Physical Illness, Psychological Woundedness and the Healing Power of Art in the Life and Work of Franz Kafka and Frida Kahlo. Another avenue of current research focuses on the impact of (sacred) circle dance in the lives of older women.

After intensive training in Sacred Circle Dance with teachers from Europe, South America, and the United States, she began teaching this dance practice regularly in the Washington, DC area. She also offers inter-arts workshops combining poetry with sacred circle dance at professional meetings.

Early Life, Education and Family

Born in Vienna, Austria, Evelyn Torton Beck, Ph.D. is a child survivor of the Holocaust who came to the United States in 1940. She received her BA from Brooklyn College, her MA from Yale University and holds Ph.D.s in both Comparative Literature (University of Wisconsin, 1969) and Clinical Psychology (Fielding Graduate University, 2004).

Her first marriage was to Mathematician Anatole Beck, and they had two children Nina and Micah. She is now married to Lee Knefelkamp, a well-known academic in the area of Psychology and Education, and she is grandmother to a diverse extended family.