Women, Gender, Religion

ELIZABETH A. CASTELLI is Assistant Professor of Religion at Barnard College, Columbia University and has published widely in Biblical Studies, early Christian history, and feminist studies in religion. Her publications include Imitating Paul: A Discourse of Power (1991), The Postmodern Bible (1995), and Reimagining Christian Origins (1996), co-edited with Hal Taussig. - ROSAMOND C. RODMAN is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Religion at Columbia University.

'Working the nexus of several volatile categories-women, gender, religion-these essays explore both theoretical and practical occasions on which these terms must be mutually interpreted. From the perspectives of diverse disciplines, the authors take up the most important and difficult challenges to feminism. Each essay is fascinating and instructive. Together they expose and explore the state of the discourse at the beginning of the twenty-first century. This is the essential book for feminist studies in religion.' 'These stimulating and sophisticated essays combine to create an essential collection of feminist studies in religion.' - Margaret R. Miles, Dillenberger Professor of Historical Theology, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley 'An excellent basic text for an academic introduction to the field.' - WaterWheel 'This collection will prove an invaluable, if demanding, text for those undergraduate and postgraduate courses in religion and gender which aim to be multi-traditional and cross-historical...no serious student of the discipline should ignore its manifold challenges to understanding.' - Melissa Raphael, Modern Believing

• Introduction: E.A.Castelli PART I: CATEGORIES OF ANALYSIS AND CRITIQUE: 'GENDER,' 'RELIGION,' 'FEMINISM' What's in a Name? Exploring the Dimensions of What 'Feminist Studies in Religion' Means; M.Peskowitz Weaving the Fabric of our Lives; C.P.Christ Unweaving: A Response to Carol Christ; M.Peskowitz A Further Response; C.P.Christ 'Gender' for a Marxist Dictionary: The Sexual Politics of a Word; D.J.Haraway The Translation of Cultures: Engendering Yorùbá Language, Orature, and World-Sense; O.Oyewùmí Snakes Alive: Resituating the Moral in the Study of Religion; R.A.Orsi Transnationalism, Feminism, and Fundamentalism; M.Moallem PART II: ORIGINS, IDENTITIES, AND APPROPRIATIONS Sexuality, Sin, and Sorrow: The Emergence of the Female Character; M.Bal Sacrifice as Remedy for Having Been Born of Woman; N.Jay 'Shahbano'; Z.Pathak & R.S.Rajan A Question of Origins: Goddess Cults Greek and Modern; H.P.Foley On Medicine Women and White Shame-ans: New Age Native Americanism and Commodity Fetishism as Pop Culture Feminism; L.E.Donaldson PART III: GENDER AND RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE: INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES Margery Kempe Answers Back; C.Dinshaw Sexology and the Occult: Sexuality and Subjectivity in Theosophy's New Age; J.Dixon Rituals of Desire: Spirit, Culture, and Sexuality in the Writings of Rebecca Cox Jackson; K.C.Bassard The Woman Who Wanted to Be Her Father: A Case Analysis of Dybbuk Possession in a Hasidic Community; Y.Bilu The Production of Possession: Spirits and the Multinational Corporation in Malaysia; A.Ong PART IV: GENDER, RELIGION, AND BODY POLITICS From a 'Pot of Filth' to a 'Hedge of Roses' (and Back): Changing Theorizations of Menstruation in Judaism; J.Steinberg Veils, Virgins, and the Tongues of Men and Angels; M.R.D'Angelo The Veil in Their Minds and on Our Heads: Veiling Practices and Muslim Women; H.Hoodfar Women Who Walk on Water: Working across 'Race' in Women Against Fundamentalism; C.Connolly & P.Patel Agency, Activism, and Agendas; P.JefferyTender Warriors; L.Kintz Getting Religion; J.R.Jakobsen & A.Pellegrini PART V: GENDER AND RELIGION IN THE POLITICS OF THE ACADEMY The Academy as Real Life: New Participants & Paradigms in the Study of Religion; J.Plaskow