Women and New and Africana Religions

Lillian E. Ashcraft-Eason, Ph.D., has taught at several universities and currently is professor of history, initiator, and former chair of the Africana Studies Program, and director of the Benin Seminar at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, OH. Darnise C. Martin, Ph.D., is assistant professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, CA, where she teaches courses in African American Studies and Theological Studies. Oyeronke Olademo, Ph.D., is senior lecturer at the University of Ilorin in Nigeria, where she has taught and researched on comparative religions and women in religion for the past 19 years.

This probing and thought-provoking essay collection examines the multifaceted experiences of women from a number of religious and spiritual persuasions around the world, including those who practice religions that have emerged in the past half century as well as practitioners of African religions that have found a place in the New World. Contributors to this volume use religion as a lens with which to examine family and environment, social and spiritual empowerment, and sexuality and power, and their essays reveal the ways in which worldview informs roles in religion and society. Each essay includes historical and social background information and fascinating insights from renowned scholars who share their own research and firsthand experiences with their subjects.