The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Women’s Studies in Religion

Helen T Boursier editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Rowman & Littlefield

Published:22nd Mar '23

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

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The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Women’s Studies in Religion cover

The handbook offers interreligious and multicultural perspectives on women’s studies in religion in conversation with specific contextualized gender-biased justice challenges. Contributing authors address 25 current and trending themes from their diverse socio-cultural-religious backgrounds. Themes move across the spectrum of women’s studies in religion, blurring the boundaries beyond “religious studies” to include perspectives from ethics, philosophy, sociology, economics, and law as. Religious diversity addresses challenges for women’s studies through the lens of Wicca, Buddhist, Asian Trans Pacific, Hinduism, Judaism, Muslima, and Christian. The handbook is practical, contemporary, and relevant as it moves theory to practical application in the section on challenging and changing system gender injustice with chapters on sexual violence and the #MeToo movement, femicide and feminicide, a Mohawk response to colonial dominion and violations to Indigenous lands and women, and a religio-politico witness for love and justice, include how to engage the theories of women’s studies in religion in the public square through civic engagement to create empowerment for actual, practical change. It shows the future movement of the becoming of women’s studies with chapters digital activism, reimagining women’s mosque spaces online, minoritized sexual identities, and spiritual homelessness, and charges readers to see “hope now” by challenging and changing gender injustice.

These 25 essays by faculty and graduate students have great classroom potential. Contributions include smart theoretical essays (Michelle Mueller’s “Constructing Wicca as ‘Women’s Religion’: A By-Product of Feminist Religious Scholarship” shows how academics can sway popular imagination); compelling case studies (e.g., Antoinette DeNapoli’s “‘I Am the One Who Will Change the World’: A Female Guru’s Response to Sexual Inequality and Violence in Hinduism” and Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa’s “For All Sentient Beings: The Question of Gender in Tibetan and Himalayan Buddhist Communities”); interrogations of systemic issues (e.g., Candace Johnson’s fascinating “Feminist Ethics and the Harms of Credibility Excess” and Dawn Martin Hill’s searing “Doctrine of Discovery: A Mohawk Feminist Response to Colonial Dominion and Violations to Indigenous Lands and Women”); and guidance on moving from theory to praxis (Sharon Welch’s “Reconfiguring Economic Sustainability: A Feminist Ethic for Liberty and Justice for All”). The focus of the collection is more on lived experience—trauma, #MeToo, familial and state-sponsored violence, postcolonial and eco-feminist readings, ethnography, language, reclamation of tradition, online religion—than on textual interpretation or doctrine. Resources include glossaries of hashtags, people, terms, and organizations. Recommended.

ISBN: 9781538180914

Dimensions: 253mm x 177mm x 27mm

Weight: 866g

416 pages