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Subject Area: Religion and Gender
Craven, Florence E.V.2010 0-7734-3787-8 364 pages
This study is unique in that it analyzes the attitudes of a female sample stratified according to religious tradition (Catholic/Protestant). The sample was also stratified by age (21-45/46-70 years) and location (rural/urban). Irish sociological, social psychological and feminist scholarship has produced diverse work concerning many facets of Irish women’s lives, but little research has specifically focused on the attitudes of Irish Protestant and Catholic women as distinct groups.
Elvey, Anne F.
2005 0-7734-5974-X 416 pages
In the context of environmental destruction, this book takes a call to turn toward Earth as a starting point for an ecological feminist hermeneutics focused in the notion of the “material given”. Like Earth, the pregnant body is a material given, a necessity for human species being Within the Gospel of Luke, the pregnant body is site of a divine necessity underwriting the narrative. A focus on the pregnant body brings into dialogue the Lukan divine necessity and the everyday necessity of the material given. As a particular site of sociality between self and other, the pregnant body represents a gestational paradigm. Within the Lukan narrative a gestational paradigm appears not only in the pregnancy of Mary of Nazareth, but also in her activity of keeping (2: 19, 51). The gestational paradigm exhibited in keeping also informs the narrative tropes of serving, journeying to Jerusalem, compassion, and expectation. In each case, a gestational logic interweaves with and calls into question the ostensibly colonizing logic of divine necessity. In the reign (or kingdom, Gk. Basileia) of God, the interrelationship of these Lukan logics issues in a paradigm of hospitality, having implications for human responses to an ecological call.
Wessinger, Catherine Lowman
1988 0-88946-523-1 350 pages
Clark, Elizabeth
1986 0-88946-529-0 448 pages
Winner of the Adèle Mellen Prize for Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship. Treats women in the context of the early Christian world: ascetic renunciation and feminine advancement, female monasticism, and patristic exegesis of the story of Eve and Adam and the Song of Songs.
Burrus, Virginia
1987 0-88946-526-6 136 pages
Concluding that the apocryphal Acts originated among women as folk-tales, Burrus hypothesizes that their origins were literary: that they are legends which present a fantasized alternative reality and give a clue to the actual historical situations of women in the Greco-Roman world of the second to third centuries.
Cult of the Matronae in the Roman Rhineland: An Historical Evaluation of the Archaeological Evidence
Garman, Alex Gustav2008 0-7734-5224-9 196 pages
This book examines the cult of the Matronae as it occurred in the Roman Rhineland and explains the symbolism and inscriptions found on the altars. The work reviews previous scholarship on the subject, investigates ideas of Romanization, and concepts of bias and cultural exchange. This book contains six black and white photographs.
Hart, Clive
1998 0-7734-8280-6 208 pages
A generally misogynistic contribution to the querelle des femmes, the Disputatio explores theological debates of long standing: do women have souls; If so, are their souls identical to those of men? If not, are women merely higher animals? Are they made in the image of God as men are? Will women be saved? The accompanying commentary examines these questions in relation to early modern feminism, Catholic/Protestant theological debate of the 16th century, relevant literary texts, and popular belief. The tract, probably written in eastern Germany, caused a stir out of proportion both to its size and to the cogency or originality of its arguments. The Vatican twice placed the Disputatio on the Index of Prohibited Books, first in 1651 and then again as late as 1714. This book offers the first complete English translation, together with a commentary which includes extracts from other treatises either written in direct response or addressing similar issues. It includes a translation of an essay on related themes published two and a half centuries later as an addendum to Anne Gabriel Meusnier de Querlon's French version of the tract. An Appendix includes the Latin text of the Disputatio, edited from a copy of the first edition collated with the only surviving manuscript. A full set of textual notes follows.
Rees, Margaret Ann
2004 0-7734-6321-6 132 pages
María Vela y Cueto (1561-1617), a Cistercian nun, represents the later stages of a religious reform led by St Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross, her mystical life recorded in a spiritual diary and an autobiography. In recent years interest has been gathering in religious writings by women, since comparatively little is known about them. One crucial issue under discussion is the connection between mystical ecstasy and hysteria or neuroticism in women. In the past María has been presented as a constitutionally weak female - holy but hysterical. This study aims to re-awaken awareness of an almost unknown figure who was once venerated, and also to look again at her spirituality. Her writings are of interest to hispanists, historians and theologians: (1) as an example of the growing number of mystics in Golden Age Iberia; (2) as an illustration of Spanish social history at this time; (3) for the light they throw on contemporary Church history, including the increasing importance of spiritual advisers; (4) for their description of convent life including - since María was organist and choir mistress - a glimpse of the liturgy in a convent famed for its music in an era producing some of Spain's greatest composers. More important still, her pages include passages of great power which should be made more widely known to an English-speaking public, especially anyone with an interest in spirituality.
Kendrick, Susan
2009 0-7734-4705-9 212 pages
This work demonstrates that earlier Christian perceptions of virginity, once dominant in Catholic England, although suppressed by Protestantism, maintained enough influence to transform an unmated queen with no successor into a divine virgin goddess
Bennion, Janet
2008 0-7734-4939-6 248 pages
Highlights many of the inherent problems of polygyny, but challenges the media-driven depiction of plural marriage as uniformly abusive and harmful to women, criticizing techniques used by state and federal governments used to raid entire communities as they did in the 1950s and in April of 2008. This book contains six black and white photographs and two color photographs.
Caspi, Mishael
2004 0-7734-6490-5 396 pages
This book revives the tradition of Eve in three traditions and literatures. The discussion of Islamic material is particularly valuable, since it examines the exchanges of ideas between early Islam and Judaism. It displays an amazing ability to uncover irony and sarcasm in ancient writings that have a profound implication for understanding ancient religion, and also examines contemporary references to Eve.
Sur, Carolyn Wörman
1993 0-7734-9584-3 248 pages
This study links a topic of current interest in feminist theology, inclusive God-images, with Hildegard of Bingen's twelfth-century text, showing how Hildegard's images of God transcend the gendered-image of God as Father. The author springboards from the work of several contemporary authorities, among them Carl Jung, Otto Pächt, and Adelgundis Führkötter, to unravel Hildegard's multi-layered thought process. With color illustrations.
Hegy, Pierre
1996 0-7734-8765-4 213 pages
This work presents biographies of three outstanding contemporary women, Maisie Ward, Evelyn Underhill, and Mollie Rogers. It offers an overview of the paradigmatic changes in spirituality from obedience to healing. Finally, four chapters develop feminist metaphors.
Neimann, Theresa D.
2015 0-7734-4267-7 348 pages
This a feminist interdisciplinary examination of the divine imagery and its connection to sexual justice, investigating the use of the word Zöe, Greek for “life”. A feminist hermeneutics using varying methodologies is utilized to empower women’s autonomy. The book examines the Greek Septuagint, the Nag Hammadi Scriptures, the Kabbalah, Hebrew and other scriptural sources to argue that Zöe can serve to provide multiple feminine images of God: Lady Wisdom, Mother God, Fountain of Life, Tree of Life, and Restorer.
Derayeh, Minoo
2006 0-7734-5813-1 260 pages
The changes that affected Iranian women’s lives after the coming of Islam in the seventh century were similar to the changes that occurred in their lives after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. In both cases these changes were largely wrought by men.
Iranian women have been actively involved and have participated fully in diverse religious, political, and social contexts since the eighteenth century, but frequently without recognition. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the belief that education was a pillar of freedom began to gain popularity among Iranian women. Their efforts to secure an equal place with men in the nation’s educational institutions received support from a number of women writers and poets in the form of protests and petitions. The twentieth century, however, witnessed the destruction of most of Iranian women’s hopes and quests. Different Iranian governments enacted a series of important laws and regulations touching on “women’s issues” without allowing any input from women.
In the last two decades, under the Islamic Republic, laws and regulations affecting the status of Iranian women came in the form of different religious decrees that were justified by the argument that they all complied with the Quran and the shariah. Iranian women have refused to abandon their quests for an equal status. This is their story.
Dourley, John P.
1990 0-88946-244-5 112 pages
Systematically covers Jung's criticism of biblical imagination, the Goddess as Mother of the Trinity, and Jung's appropriation of Eckhart to make the above points. The three sections of this work are entitled "Jung's Critique of Biblical Imagination: An Appreciative Undermining," "The Goddess as Mother of the Trinity," and "Jung and Meister Eckhart: Breakthrough to the Goddess."
Prior, Karen Swallow
2003 0-7734-6699-1 174 pages
This work provides both an introduction to the genre of the didactic religious novel and the culture of evangelicalism that was developing halfway through Hannah More's life, reaching its full flowering at about the time of her death in 1833.
Maseno-Ouma, Loreen Iminza
2014 0-7734-2575-6 300 pages
Christianity has become a major influence on African life. This book studies the way that sixteen African widows cope with grief by turning to Christology. Their daily lives are documented and show that they survive through their faith in Jesus. Most of them pray almost everyday, and their relationship with God reflects the different ways that each of them experiences grief. Several of the widows lacked genuine and binding companionship because people consider them burdens. So they stay away from public spaces and feel lonely, which could be the reason why they compensate by creating a relationship with God. Most of these women also conceal their loneliness because it often creates worry and anxiety in their children so they cry alone and in private.
O’Sullivan, Michael
2010 0-7734-1448-7 432 pages
This book articulates a Roman Catholic theological understanding concerning salvation in Jesus Christ that can be transformative of physical and sexual male violence against women across the world. It identifies key elements for a working definition of such complex violence, and highlights the pervasiveness and seriousness of the violence with quantitative data. For the Catholic believer the violence is graver still because a Catholic component can often be identified in the violence. This component is illustrated in the book by qualitative data about Catholic women who suffered incest. Employing the foundational and methodological framework of the praxis of authenticity in consciousness that Bernard Lonergan has identified, and that everyone can verify in their own experience, as well as its specifically Christian conversion component, the book provides grounds for making the situation of violence a theological matter. The book’s argument progresses by following Lonergan’s definition that theology functions to mediate between a religion and a culture and that the function of ‘systematics’ in method in theology is to construct contextualised understandings for the sake of ‘doing the truth in love.’ Theological meanings transformative of the situation of violence are elaborated in the book in terms of how to conceive salvation in Jesus Christ. Such an understanding of salvation is constructed by drawing firstly on meanings for salvation in scripture that are dialectically opposed to destructive meanings that the Catholic women, who suffered incest, referred to above received and believed concerning salvation. Insight into these biblical meanings is deepened by drawing on the theologies of salvation of Karl Rahner, Gustavo Gutierrez, and feminist responses to Gutierrez’s theology. The transformative meaning for salvation is developed further by addressing the issues of the male Jesus as saviour and his violent death of redemption in ways that can serve the struggle to stop male violence against women. The book ends by drawing attention to recent documents on male violence against women by Church leaders that make specific reference to a transformative role for theologians and by calling for third level theology colleges to take account of the pertinent violence as a theological imperative and to collaborate with others in the field of concern as part of the function of theology.
Predelli, Line Nyhagen
2003 0-7734-6640-1 368 pages
With a focus on missionary women and men in the Norwegian Missionary Society in Madagascar and Norway, this study provides an in-depth examination of how gender relations are negotiated in a religious organization. The time period covered (1860-1910) coincides with colonial efforts of major European states. The book also discusses how aspects of class, race and sexuality must be taken into account in studies of gender relations in the missionary movement. It shows, for example, how marriage propositions and sexual relations between white missionaries and black converts were dealt with by the mission organization in Madagascar. Other topics include the attempts of Norwegian missionary women to impart a form of domesticity to Malagasy girls, their efforts to establish direct links with the broader feminist movement, and the gradual democratization of the mission organization both in Norway and Madagascar.
Morris, Teresa
2010 0-7734-3678-2 324 pages
The work is the most comprehensive, current record of research and scholarship concerned with explicating Julian of Norwich's Showings. This bibliography includes a handbook of information related to mystics contemporary to Julian, as well as information related to the life of the religious of Julian's era.
Gagnon, Mireille
2008 0-7734-5112-9 176 pages
This study is a first in depth look at a contemporary witchcraft, known as Wicca, in the francophone province of Quebec in Canada. Taking an ethnographic approach and placing itself within the context of two different languages and world, views this study evaluates the Wiccan experience in Quebec, arguing that this particular group claims a religious rather than spiritual relation with the world.
Clark, Elizabeth
1984 0-88946-535-5 310 pages
The translation of the Vita of a rich Roman matron who was famous throughout the Christian world for her renunciations and her dedication to Christ. This fascinating account reveals a woman who exerted a very strong influence on the development of ascetic ideals in the time of the early Church. Includes an extensive scholarly apparatus by Elizabeth Clark. An important source for studies of women during the late Empire.
Umansky, Ellen M.
1983 0-88946-537-1 283 pages
The first critical study of the founder of the movement of Liberal Judaism in Great Britain and of the World Union for Progressive Judaism.
Umansky, Ellen M.
1985 0-88946-534-7 415 pages
Provides hitherto-unpublished source material stemming from Lily Montagu's work: as lay minister of the West Central Jewish Congregation in London; on the founding of the Jewish Religious Union and the World Union for Progressive Judaism; and with the West Central Jewish Girls' Club.
Greene, Dana
1980 0-88946-968-7 401 pages
Presents, collected for the first time in one resource work, the stenographical texts of 49 speeches and sermons given by Lucretia Mott (1793-1880), a forerunner of the modern women's rights movement, noted abolitionist, influential social reformer, and peace activist who left no written corpus
Smedley, Katherine
1987 0-88946-525-8 328 pages
Martha Schofield, a courageous young Philadelphia Quaker and abolitionist, has been known chiefly as the founder and head of the Schofield Norman and Industrial School in Aiken, South Carolina. Until its Incorporation into the public school system, it was one of the most successful schools for blacks in the south, winning wide recognition for its emphasis on vocational training and character education. The extensive collection of Schofield’s letters and journals released by her family, show her to have been much more than an educator of note. Her articles in the northern press publicizing violations of black political rights in 1876 and again in 1880, resulted in determined efforts to drive her from the south. She not only remained but became one of Aiken’s most noted citizens.
Kilson, Marion
1991 0-7734-9728-5 160 pages
Presents a case study of a pioneering Protestant missionary wife and mother whose years in Japan spanned the Meiji era. Based upon personal correspondence and mission records, the portrait is organized sociologically rather than chronologically. Begins with brief discussion of the foreign missionary movement as a significant component of 19th century western expansion, sociological sketches of the contexts of her life, analysis of her social relationships, finally her role as mediator between Japanese and American culture. Contributes to the study of the American foreign missionaries movement and the understanding of late 19th century American women's lives while demonstrating the utility of anthropological categories and constructs in such studies.
Fishbane, Simcha
2018 1-4955-0686-X 60 pages
Dr. Simcha Fishbane examines the topic of menstruation and menstrual blood in the Torah. The study focuses on the views of Rabbis and other members of rabbinical culture in the second century C.E. Dr. Fishbane examines the relevant passages from the Torah on menstruation and menstrual blood and interprets them.
Richardson, Herbert W.
2021 1-4955-0909-5 276 pages
This book continues that arguing that Motherlove, or the eros of life, expresses itself through the step-by-step development of levels of consciousness.
Richardson, Herbert W.
2021 1-4955-0910-9 276 pages
Harley, Marta
1985 0-88946-531-2 150 pages
A critical edition and translation of a Dante-esque Middle English account of some visions of Purgatory that took place at the Benedictine Convent of Nunnaminster in Winchester, England, on August 10-12, 1422.
Raser, Harold E.
1987 0-88946-527-4 389 pages
A study of this mid-19th-century Methodist theologian and major religious figure, a woman evangelist who traveled widely in America and England for thirty years.
Wisbey, Herbert A. Jr.
1964 64-7875 232 pages
Fascinating and little-known story of Jemima Wilkinson, the first native-born woman to found an American religious society. She began her ministry in Rhode Island in 1776 at the age of 24, convinced that she had been directed by a vision during a serious illness. She preached for 43 years, and founded a community on Seneca Lake. Based on her letters and journals and other sources, an appendix includes the complete text of her own statement of her beliefs, originally printed as a booklet in 1784, as well as the complete text of the Death Book of the Society of Universal Friends, which contains the names and dates of death of society members.
Marshall, Madeleine Forell
1987 0-88946-524-X 380 pages
Lapomarda, Vincent A.
2012 0-7734-3914-5 204 pages
In a narrative that covers these women who shaped history from the colonial era down to the present day, the author focuses on those who were influential among the Native Americans as well as among the immigrants, including those of French, Irish, Italian, and other backgrounds who helped shape business, education, health care, and even religion itself. Of particular relevance were the Sisters of Mercy who did so much to develop hospitals, orphanages, and schools in the Pine Tree State.
Maddox, Margaret Joan
2008 0-7734-4945-0 280 pages
Analyzes how Joan of Arc’s heroism is deliberately undermined in film through the repetition of interpretations of her which enforce conventional patriarchal constructs and limit her heroism. This book contains four black and white photographs and five color photographs.
Fishbane, Simcha
2018 1-4955-0685-1 52 pages
Dr. Fishbane examines the treatment of prostitutes in the Babylonian Talmud, focusing on their status in the community. The book will consider cases cited in the Talmud looking at various mentions of prostitutes and prostitution, with a consideration of the different treatment given to Israelite women versus gentile women.
Trevett, Christine
2000 0-7734-7518-4 272 pages
This study covers the formative and troubled years of earliest Quakerism in England and Wales, with some reference to emigration to America. Women were active to a remarkable degree in the sects of this time. This study concentrates on their contribution, including chapters on women’s modes of prophecying, preaching and witnessing, and patterns of change in the religious group, especially as these impinged on the freedoms of women.
Kimball, Gayle
1982 0-88946-544-4 206 pages
In Stowe's writings Kimball perceives "a `Protestant Mariology' in which HBS stressed the role of the mother of Jesus. . . . There is valuable information in this book, especially in the third chapter, `Salvation Found in Womanhood.'" - Church History
Davidson, Phebe
1993 0-7734-9354-9 228 pages
This study develops the theme of spiritual rhetoric as an important foundation of the American autobiographical tradition and the related idea that the marginalized voices of women and African-Americans worked to alter and redefine America's conception not only of autobiography but of self and gender. The redefinition process is illustrated through readings of texts ranging from Puritan conversion (Anne Bradstreet) through evangelical autobiography (African-American evangelist Amanda Berry Smith) and from Indian captivity narrative through the slave and ex-slave (post-bellum) narratives.
Brantlinger, Patrick
2015 1-4955-0359-3 340 pages
This study uncovers the story of Rev. Pearl May Patrick a nineteenth-century born woman whose commitment to liberal religion and gender equity broke many religious and social barriers in Midwest America. She and her husband were Debsite socialists, ardent supports of progressive ideals and Christian Universalists focused on cultural and social change with emphasis on preaching the social gospel.
Laporte, Jean
1982 0-88946-545-2 197 pages
Baldwin, Jo
2001 0-7734-7576-1 164 pages
Text includes a ‘tuned’ prayer and seven sermons: The Words of Christ; Forgiveness; The Holy Spirit; Be Merciful to Me; Jesus – The Light of the World; Remembering; The Death of Death.
Rees, Margaret Ann
2007 0-7734-5517-5 248 pages
Following an earlier monograph,Doña María Vela y Cueto, Cistercian Mystic of Spain’s Golden Age (Edwin Mellen Press, 2004), in which the life and spirituality of this almost unknown Cistercian nun living in the Spanish Golden Age, Dr. Margaret A. Rees now reproduces two works by Doña María Vela y Cueto. The first volume presents her Libro de las Mercedes, consisting of the spiritual diary of this nun who, being cloistered in the city of Avila, had witnessed the reforms and influence of St. Teresa d’Avila and St. John of the Cross who recalls and records her own mystical experiences. Included in the second volume is her Vida, an autobiographical work composed in obedience to her spiritual director and reflecting the trials which could afflict a nun striving to stretch the boundaries of convent life as she aimed for sainthood.
McCarthy, Caritas
1986 0-88946-530-4 280 pages
A biography of the founder of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus in England, Cornelia Peacock Connelly (1809-1879): a mother of five, originally a wealthy Philadelphia Presbyterian, then an Episcopalian, whose case for canonization now lies before the Sacred Congregation for the Causes of Saints.
Hoffman, Daniel L.
1995 0-7734-8996-7 260 pages
This study explores each facet of Elaine Pagels' provocative theory regarding a positive correlation between the active female deities of Gnostic cosmologies and the actual status of women in Gnostic groups in the second and early third centuries. The work expands on earlier studies that noted the presence of many secondary, inferior, or otherwise negative female images in Gnostic thought, and refutes the theory that women in early orthodox Christian groups had low status in relation to women in Gnosticism, primarily by considering the writings of Irenaeus and Tertullian. It demonstrates that a comprehensive understanding of their views of women do not allow for the assumption that they distorted the truly negative position of women in some Gnostic groups. Finally, the study provides a balanced contribution to the contemporary debate about gender imagery for God.
Bong, Sharon A.
2006 0-7734-5579-5 312 pages
This study considers the extent to which localizing the integration of rights, cultures and religion: 1) challenges the universality and secularization of the rights discourse and practice globally; 2) bridges the disparity between the rhetoric and implementation of women’s-human rights in global and local contexts; and 3) embodies an Asian-Malaysian feminist standpoint epistemology that has the potential to reconcile the impasse of universal versus cultural relativism of rights. The narratives of 25 women and two men interviewed as faith-rights-based activists encapsulate ways of knowing and doing women’s-human rights in epitomizing what it means to radicalize rights and religion in spiritualizing politics and practicing spirituality. This study shows how critical relativism as a moral and political imperative more effectively advances and not impedes women’s rights as human rights within local and global contexts. In doing so, this study offers a solution to the impasse of universalism versus relativism of rights in the rhetoric and practice of women’s human rights. This multi-disciplinary study will be insightful to scholars in Women’s Studies, Religious Studies and Development Studies. It would also appeal to women’s human rights activists in serving as an advocacy tool in weaving rights and religions within local and global contexts.
James, Nancy C.
2008 0-7734-5009-2 236 pages
Examines the feminist theology and apophatic mysticism of the under-recognized Madame Guyon.
Whitehill, Sharon
1995 0-7734-9014-0 492 pages
Mary O'Hara has received limited attention as a writer of children's books, but this is the first volume to regard her as a serious writer of adult fiction. Her works are subtle and sensitive studies of human emotions and family dynamics. Her most ambitious novel, The Son of Adam Wyngate, dramatizes the personal, intellectual and spiritual life of a turn-of-the-century Episcopal mystic and priest. She also published non-fiction books based on her writer's journals and personal diaries. This study also examines her extremely diverse careers in other fields (Hollywood scriptwriting, dairy-farming in Wyoming, writing/composing/orchestrating a musical play); her personal life (marriages and moves from East to West to East and the Rocky Mountain Divide); and her spiritual life, from Episcopalian origins through Christian Science to theosophical cults of California in the twenties and thirties, to her final home in the Roman Catholic Church.
James, Nancy C.
2007 0-7734-5289-3 276 pages
This work includes an essay examining the apophatic mysticism of Madame Guyon, the French mystic and writer, along translations of portions of her works, letters and poems. Annotations provide needed information to understand both the history of this important era and Guyon’s influential theology of pure love.
Peacock, Sandra J.
2002 0-7734-7180-4 316 pages
Frances Power Cobbe is best known to scholars of 19th century Britain for her participation in such causes as workhouse reform, education for poor children, women’s rights, and anti-vivisection. Her social activism was founded on strongly-held religious beliefs and she wrote prolifically on religion for fifty years. This book examines Cobbe’s writings on religion, ethics, and morality, and traces the development of her thought over the course of her life. Cobbe’s Theism, critique of Christianity, and her interest in the tension between science and religion moved her from the safe Victorian female realm of devotion and piety to the contentious male realm of philosophical exchange. Her voluminous writings offer a valuable case study for the intersection of women’s history, the history of religion, and intellectual history.
Wilcox, Catherine M.
1995 0-7734-8982-7 300 pages
Making use of a wide range of primary material, this study challenges traditional interpretations of early Quakerism as a religion of universal or mystical "Inner Light", and establishes it instead as an enthusiastic movement with profoundly christocentric beliefs and keen eschatological expectations. Part Two relates this to the issue of women's ministry, showing in detail how the Quakers' understanding of Christ and their Christocentric interpretation of Scripture enabled them to challenge traditional views of women, and how by the close of the century the eschatological vision governing these beliefs had dwindled, and with it -- to a degree -- the radical stance on women's ministry. These conclusions are supported by a wealth of quotations from early Quaker writings, many of which have not been examined in this context before.
Cadwallader, Robyn
2008 0-7734-4840-3 420 pages
This study investigates the implications of the portrayal of the virgin martyr as dragon-slayer. An initial reading of the thirteenth-century text of Seinte Marherete would suggest that Margaret’s power to burst through the dragon’s back, and her self-appellation as kempe, or champion, demonstrates the power available to the virgin to overcome hell and its temptations. While this is a valid reading, it is insufficient to account for the many layers of meaning woven into the text. The wide range of approaches and areas covered will make this highly original study of interest to those working in many disciplines, such as literary theory, medieval studies (romance studies, virginity studies, saints’ Lives), teratology, feminist historical studies, body inscription and early and medieval Christian theology.
Hart, Clive
2003 0-7734-6541-3 272 pages
The anonymous tract Disputatio nova contra mulieres, qua probatur eas hominess non esse (A new argument against women, in which it is demonstrated that they are not human beings), first published in 1595, rapidly grew notorious, and was reprinted many times during the 17th and 18th centuries. By selectively quoting scriptural passages, along with a few references to other works, the author attempted to prove that women have no souls, and, being little better than higher animals, will have no afterlife. Although a degree of anti-feminine spite is evident, he was less intent to denigrate women that to advance an absurd argument parallel to what he took to be the equally absurd theological propositions of the Socinian sect, that Christ was not divine. It was nevertheless inevitable that most readers would take the tract at face value. Many refutations appeared. This new edition, with complete translation, collated text, and copious quotations from many references to it, ranging from the 16th to the 20th centuries, offers the first full assessment of its impact on early modern feminist thought.
Fishbane, Simcha
2017 1-4955-0618-5 64 pages
Dr. Fishbane's monograph explores the cultural and theological reasons behind the Jewish ritual of not allowing women work on the festival of Rosh Hodesh. Rabbinic Judaism is patriarchal in nature and the ritual appears to be an exemption to cultural norms.
Fishbane, Simcha
2018 1-4955-0684-0 52 pages
Dr. Fishbane suggests that in the patriarchal world of the Torah and Talmud, society perceives women as being liminal in its social order or on the fringe of the male centered society and this excluded from most central rituals. Women are regarded as threats to the patriarchal social structure if they do not act in accordance to traditional gender roles. Such women are regarded as witches or sorceresses.
Hammett, Jenny Yates
1982 0-88946-918-0 120 pages
Hammett unravels the many strands of liberal theology in an attempt to understand a literalized Father God. Essays include "Sin and the Image of the Feminine," "Creation and the Female-Male Image," "Goddesses as Symbols of Feminine Consciousness," and "Imaginal Consciousness: The Bridge Between."
Selvidge, Marla J.
1996 0-7734-8766-2 156 pages
Irwin, Joyce
1979 0-88946-547-9 264 pages
The status of women among the early Anabaptists, the Spiritualists, including Quakers, and radical Puritans.
Davary, Bahar
2009 0-7734-3858-0 192 pages
This work argues that a link between the modern consciousness of woman and the Qur’anic discourse can be established only by revealing the historical continuity in the language formation in the image of woman. A resource for addressing this issue can be found in the discussion of modern hermeneutics. The central theme of modern hermeneutics is to examine the historical continuity between the text and its interpretations. The work of Hans-Georg Gadamer, a contemporary German philosopher who is influential in the hermeneutical ontology of language in both North America and Europe, provides the framework for this discussion.
Puttick, Elizabeth
1993 0-7734-9346-8 152 pages
This collection comprises a multi-faceted and challenging examination of women's roles: on the one hand as disciple, student, medium; on the other hand as teacher, leader, priestess. It demonstrates the complexity of the issue even within a single religion: Christianity is full of misogyny yet has produced great women saints and mystics; Hinduism has the archetype of a powerful Goddess yet women are socially subordinate. Buddhism is flourishing in the West and offering unprecedented opportunities for spiritual growth to women, yet they are subject to sexual abuse. The contributions in this collection present a wide range of traditions and approaches to these issues: Western and Eastern, old and new, scholars and practitioners. It looks at the 'Desert Mothers' (counterparts of the better-known Desert Fathers in early Christian Egypt); the Great Indian Goddess; the Brahma Kumeris in the UK; the Rajneesh movement; Sufism; Bahian Candomble; American Buddhism; Italian magical-esoteric groups; modern Paganism; and more.
Lehman, Edward C.
1987 0-88946-858-3 232 pages
An analytical report on a survey carried out in Britain to examine the reactions to women in the ministry on the part of lay members of four Protestant denominations in England: the Church of England, the Baptist Union, the Methodist Church, and the United Reformed Church. By the author of a previous study of women clergy in the U.S. (Women Clergy: Breaking Through Gender Barriers).
Johnson, Dale A.
1989 0-88946-539-8 356 pages
Proctor-Smith, Marjorie
1985 0-88946-533-9 253 pages
Brooke, George J.
1992 0-7734-9216-X 302 pages
The majority of essays in this innovative collection discuss biblical narratives that mention particular women: Hannah, Martha, Mary, Mary of Clopas, Michal, Susanna, the Syrophenician Woman, the Samaritan Woman, Tamar, and others. In each case the discussion has a novel aspect: the chauvinism of recent Bible translations, the place of Cynic philosophy in first century Palestine, the problem of the work ethic, the questioning of Jesus' attitude to women, early Christian missionary activity. Other essays discuss methodological issues: the inheritance of the daughters of Zelophehad is assessed from the perspective of social anthropology; the significance of the femininity of Wisdom is analyzed with historical critical rigor; the parables of the lost are examined from the point of view of post-modernist feminism; the logic of the passages about women in Paul's correspondence with Corinth is reconsidered.
Brown, Earl Kent
1989 0-88946-538-X 270 pages
Fishbane, Simcha
2019 1-4955-0790-4 80 pages
Dr. Fishbane and Dr. Stern describe the Haye Adam, a legal text about the nature of Jewish law and women within the Jewish community. It was composed by Rabbi Abraham Danzig (1748-1820) in Prague.
Cheung, Neky Tak-Ching
2008 0-7734-4962-0 400 pages
Based on historical, textual and field studies, this work examines the paradoxical nature of jiezhu, which simultaneously upholds and challenges tradition through religious and social empowerment. This book contains twelve color photographs and twenty-eight black and white photographs.
Bean, Heather Ann Ackley
2001 0-7734-7508-7 256 pages
Both urban Appalachian evangelical Christianity, as embodied in Appalachian women’s folk art and music, and process theology as articulated by John B. Cobb, Jr, and those he has mentored share an existentialist eschatology that emphasizes the salvific quality of individual life in the present rather than hope in the future. Process theodicy lacks a rich aesthetic, symbolic or ritual tradition through which to express these beliefs and thus is often criticized for its seeming lack of applicability to Christian life and nurture. Urban Appalachian women’s folk art and music, however, is widely celebrated for its powerful emotional impact, but its multivalent symbolism is seldom explored for theological insight. This project explores the ways in which these two marginal Christian existential theological traditions share common beliefs, articulate them in radically different ways with radically different results, and thus might learn from one another.