Women and Religion, (4 Volume Set)

This collection is an essential research tool for all students specializing in religion and women’s studies, and will be equally useful to those working in related fields such as anthropology, cultural studies, history, literary studies, philosophy, political science, psychology, and theology. By tracing the evolution of the topic, from the beginnings of feminist research on religion to more contemporary debates about categorizations of gender in the study of religion, this four-volume collection serves the needs of both specialist and generalist users.

Women and Religion includes essays treating a broad range of religious traditions, while focusing on particular methodological and theoretical concerns common to the study of women and religion. Organized thematically, each volume includes the most formative theoretical contributions to the field, grouped together with articles that explore a particular set of issues from a range of traditions, with the use of methodologies drawn from anthropology, history, sociology, textual criticism, and religious studies. Each volume’s introductory essay explicitly problematizes the central categories of analysis operating in the study of women and religion while also setting the articles in historical context.

Volume I

Chapter 1 : "Woman" as Symbol and Women as Agents : Gendered Religious Discourses and Practices : Revisioning Gender
Chapter 2 : African-American Women’s History and The Metalanguage of Race
Chapter 3 : Gender : A Useful Category of Historical Analysis : American Historical Review
Chapter 4 : Bodies that Matter
Chapter 5 : And Woman His Humanity" : Female Imagery in The Religious Writing of The Later Middle Ages : Fragmentation and Redemption : Essays on Gender and The Human Body in Medieval Religion
Chapter 6 : MoTher Goose and The Voices of Women, Implied Spider
Chapter 7 : From Filth to Defilement, Powers of Horror
Chapter 8 : World Secularisms at The Millennium : Social Text
Chapter 9 : Feminist Theory and The Study of South Asian Religions : Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion
Chapter 10 : The Romance of Resistance : Tracing Transformations of Power through Bedouin Women : American Ethnologist
Chapter 11 : The Power of Denial : Buddhism, Purity and Gender
Chapter 12 : Religious Canon and Literary Identity : A Mieke Bal Reader
Chapter 13 : Theories of Sacrifice', Throughout Your Generations Forever : Sacrifice, Religion, and Paternity
Chapter 14 : Religious Habits', Vested Interests : Cross Dressing and Cultural Anxiety
Chapter 15 : Haunted by Empire : Geographies of Intimacy in North American History
Chapter 16 : Real and Imagined Women : Politics and/of Representation : Real and Imagined Women : Gender, Culture, and Postcolonialism

Volume II

Chapter 17 : Li Zhi and John Stuart Mill : A Confucian Feminist Critique of Liberal Feminism : The Sage and The Second Sex : Confucianism, Ethics, and Gender
Chapter 18 : Household and Empire', Household, Women, and Christianities
Chapter 19 : The Figure of The Abducted Woman : The Citizen as Sexed : Life and Words : Violence and The Descent into The Ordinary
Chapter 20 : Monogamy as The Law of Social Life : Public Vows
Chapter 21 : The Dasa Sil Mata in Contemporary Sri Lanka : Women Under The Bo Tree : Buddhist Nuns in Sri Lanka
Chapter 22 : A Mosque of Their Own : Muslim Women, Chinese Islam and Sexual Equality : The History of Women’s Mosques in Chinese Islam
Chapter 23 : Daily Labours', Spinning Fantasies : Rabbis, Gender and History
Chapter 24 : Feminization and its Discontents : Torah Study as a System for The Domination of Women : Unheroic Conduct : The Rise of Heterosexuality and The Invention of The Jewish Man
Chapter 25 : Love Between Women : Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism
Chapter 26 : Female Sorcery, Material Life, and Urban Community Formation : Women Who Live Evil Lives : Gender, Religion, and The Politics of Power in Colonial Guatemala
Chapter 27 : Contested Family : Navigating Kin and Culture in Protestant Missions to The Tsimshian, 1857–1896, Households of Faith : Family, Gender, and Community in Canada
Chapter 28 : Healing Hands, Healthy Bodies : Protestant Women and Faith Healing in Canada and The United States, 1880–1930 : Women in Twentieth Century Protestantism
Chapter 29 : Jesus in our Wombs : Embodying Modernity in a Mexican Convent
Chapter 30 : When Spirits Start Veiling : The Case of The Veiled She-Devil in a Muslim Town of Niger : Africa Today
Chapter 31 : Spiritual, But Religious : "Spirituality" Among Religiously Motivated Feminist Activists : Culture and Religion
Chapter 32 : "Woman" and The "Primitive" in Paul Tillich’s Life and Thought : Some Implications for The Study of Religion : Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion

Volume III

Chapter 33 : The Text and Authority, Speaking in God’s Name
Chapter 34 : Practice, Belief, and Feminist Philosophy of Religion, Thinking Through Rituals
Chapter 35 : One Plus One Makes Three : Buddhist Gender, Monasticism, and The Law of The Non-Excluded Middle : History of Religion
Chapter 36 : Progressive Muslims and Islamic Jurisprudence : The Necessity for Critical Engagement with Marriage and Divorce Laws : Progressive Muslims
Chapter 37 : Here Comes Skotsl : Renewing Halacha : Engendering Judaism : An Inclusive Theology and Ethics
Chapter 38 : The Subversive Nature of Virtue in The Mahabharata : A Tale about Women, Smelly Ascetics, and God : Journal of American Academy of Religion
Chapter 39 : The Book of Ruth : Idyllic Revisionism : Countertraditions in The Bible : A Feminist Approach
Chapter 40 : Chosen Moments : Mediation and Direct Experience in The Life of The Classical Tamil Saint Karaikkal Ammaiyar : Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion
Chapter 41 : The Daodejing : Resources for Contemporary Feminist Thinking : Journal of Chinese Philosophy
Chapter 42 : Jemima in Spiritual Baptist Experience in Toronto : Spiritual MoTher or Servile Woman? : Small Axe : A Caribbean Journal of Criticism
Chapter 43 : Manufacturing a Feminized Siege Mentality', Journal of Contemporary Ethnography
Chapter 44 : The Uses of The Supernatural, A Mighty Baptism : Race, Gender, and The Creation of American Protestantism
Chapter 45 : The Mapuche Man Who Became a Woman Shaman : Selfhood, Gender Transgression, and Competing Cultural Norms : American Ethnologist
Chapter 46 : The Disabled Fetal Imaginary : Testing Women, Testing The Fetus

Volume IV

Chapter 47 : Sexual Politics : The Place of Enchantment : British Occultism and The Culture of The Modern
Chapter 48 : Feminisms and Secularisms, Secularisms
Chapter 49 : Gendered Religious Organizations : The Case of Theravada Buddhism in America : Gender & Society
Chapter 50 : The Feminist Scholar and The Tkhines', Voices of The Matriarchs
Chapter 51 : God’s Daughters
Chapter 52 : The Scandal of Pain in Childbirth, Suffering Religion
Chapter 53 : Feminist Theory, Embodiment, and The Docile Agent : Some Reflections on The Egyptian Islamic Revival : Cultural Anthropology
Chapter 54 : Gender Theory and Gendered Realities : Nashim : A Journal of Women’s Studies and Gender Issues
Chapter 55 : Feminism and its Burden of Birth : Women with Mustaches and Men without Beards : Gender and Sexual Anxieties of Iranian Modernity
Chapter 56 : Managing Tradition', The Pursuit of Certainty : Religious and Cultural Formulations
Chapter 57 : Who is Authorized to Speak? : KaTherine Mayo and The Politics of Imperial Feminism in British India : Journal of Indian Philosophy
Chapter 58 : Gendered States : Rethinking Culture as a Site of South Asian Human Rights Work : Human Rights Quarterly
Chapter 59 : The Practice of Mizuko Kuyo and The Changing Nature of Abortion : Marketing The Menacing Fetus in Japan
Chapter 60 : Abortion, Ambiguity, and Exorcism : A Review Essay Based on Helen Hardacre’s Marketing The Menacing Fetus in Japan : Journal of American Academy of Religion
Chapter 61 : Anti-Judaism and Postcolonial Biblical Interpretation : Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion