This course examines the roles and status of women in world religions, and more broadly, gender issues that affect both women and men in religious traditions, through an introductory survey of women's religious experiences in Indigenous religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Daoism, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. We will explore past and present contributions of women to these religious traditions, the increasing influence of feminist theological critiques and transformations of religious patriarchies, and the rising impact and backlash of religious fundamentalisms. To that end, we will employ a wide variety of materials to understand and analyze how different religious traditions construct women as well as how women reclaim and re-appropriate these same traditions to reconstruct religions and thereby express and enact their rich, dynamic religious lives.
- Teacher: Rosemary Carbine