Women's Studies Commons^™

Rice, Reciprocity, And Generosity: Embedded Ecologies In Hindu Women’S Rituals, Zoe Carlson

CMC Senior Theses

Hindu women’s perspectives of the more-than-human world are illuminated through ritual. Researching ecological actions millions of people of different faiths across the world partake in every day, in the context of the climate crisis of our present time, is a vital project I undertake in this thesis. I look to Hinduism, which has traditionally been called an “ecological” religion, but without a clear definition of what “ecological” means. I use Vijaya Nagarajan’s theories about Hinduism, women, and ecology as a theoretical guide. I apply her theory of “embedded ecologies” to analyze how knowledge about the environment is layered in cultural, …

Indigenous Climatic Perspectives: A Multidisciplinary Approach To Environmental Discourse Analysis, Linda G. Claros

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation presents a multidisciplinary analysis of climate discourse from Indigenous Climatic Perspectives (ICP). This research highlights how the manner in which we relate intellectually, culturally and spiritually to the environment has been dictated by economic ideology developed within Euro-American capitalistic paradigms. Hence, the origin of our climate disaster is traced to religious and philosophical assumptions about Nature and the environment, that operate unchallenged within spheres of discourse- scientific, religious and cultural. This dissertation presents an alternative means of analysis, Indigenous Climatic Perspectives, by which we can come to understand our place in the biosphere by embedding new theoretical and …

Women In Kingly Genealogies: The Queens, Widows, And Prostitutes That Changed The Story, Lydia Dowdell

Senior Honors Theses

While there are creative pieces theorizing about Tamar and her inclusion in both David and Jesus’ genealogies, there is a lack of research comparing King David’s genealogy in I Chronicles 2 with the kingly genealogies of the same time. Comparing the two shows that genealogies in the surrounding nations—Assyria, Babylonia, etc.—are lacking women. In contrast, the Old Testament is filled with kingly genealogical records that list and name women.

This thesis will touch on the differences and similarities between the kingly records/genealogies, theorize and explore the levirate marriage custom and matrilinear descent, and attempt to provide a better understanding of …

The Legacy Book In America, 1664–1792, Roxanne Harde, Lindsay Yakimyshyn

Zea E-Books Collection

Legacy books in colonial America were instruments for the transmission of cultural values between generations: the dying mother (usually) instructing and advising children on the path to salvation and heavenly reunions. They were a popular and influential form of women’s discourse that distilled the ideologies of the religious establishment into practical and emotional lessons for lay persons, especially the young.

This collection draws together legacy texts written by colonial American women and girls: five mother’s legacy books and two legacies by children, organized here chronologically. These legacies were writ­ten in anticipation of dying, making awareness of death central to the …

Looking Back, Or Re-Visioning: Contemporary American Jewish Poets On “Lot’S Wife”, Anat Koplowitz-Breier

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Although mentioned only twice in Genesis (19:17, 26), Lot’s wife has been a topic of much discussion amongst both traditional and modern commentators and exegetes. The traditional midrashim seek to explain why she chose to disregard the instructions she was given and the nature of her punishment. In doing so, they follow two principal directions, representing her a) negatively as a wicked sinner, a Sodomite who acted as such even before disobeying the divine decree not to look backwards—thus linking her disobedience with her intrinsic character (e.g., curious, greedy, inhospitable, faithless); or b) positively as a loving mother and daughter. …

“My Daughter Was Sacrificed By My Mother”: Women’S Involvement In Ritually Motivated Violence And Murder In Contemporary Africa, Chima Agazue

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Ritually motivated crimes are grave crimes that continue to plague contemporary Africa. Occasionally, victims abducted for ritual purposes are discovered and set free. Fresh or decomposing bodies are spotted somewhere, often with missing parts taken by the ritual killers who killed the victims. Some missing persons in the continent are presumed to have been abducted or killed by ritually motivated criminals. Although ritually motivated crimes take different forms, most of them involve brutal acts of violence and murder. The barbaric manner in which these criminals attack or slaughter their victims creates fear and panic. Traditionally, men commit serious crimes involving …

Black Lips Don't Turn Blue: A Womanist Critique Of Discriminatory Language In Medical Education, Alison Lawrence

Womanist Ethics

This paper examines race and gender inequities in healthcare as it pertains to the unequal presentation of descriptors of illness in medical textbooks. The author adopts a womanist perspective to criticize the use of the white male body as the standard for all patients, which causes signs and symptoms in women and people of color to be dismissed as less important. Following an analysis of normalizing language in current medical texts as well as its consequences for patients, the author calls for a system-wide shift to more inclusive, intersectional medical education that not only acknowledges differences among patient groups, but …

Black Lips Don't Turn Blue: A Womanist Critique Of Discriminatory Language In Medical Education, Alison Lawrence

Augustana Center for the Study of Ethics Essay Contest

This paper examines race and gender inequities in healthcare as it pertains to the unequal presentation of descriptors of illness in medical textbooks. The author adopts a womanist perspective to criticize the use of the white male body as the standard for all patients, which causes signs and symptoms in women and people of color to be dismissed as less important. Following an analysis of normalizing language in current medical texts as well as its consequences for patients, the author calls for a system-wide shift to more inclusive, intersectional medical education that not only acknowledges differences among patient groups, but …

Pierce And Pine: Diane Di Prima, Mary Norbert Korte, And The Meeting Of Matter And Spirit, Iris Cushing

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Diane di Prima (1934-2020) and Mary Norbert Korte (b. 1934) are two poets whose contributions to postwar American poetry are vitally important, and yet their status on the margins of mainstream literary culture has left their work largely unstudied. Di Prima, the granddaughter of Italian Anarchist Domenico Mallozzi (with whom she shared a close relationship) grew up in an Italian-American community in Brooklyn and bore witness to the cultural schizophrenia of WWII as a child. Korte was raised in an affluent Bay Area family, and encountered hardships (including the death of her father when she was 12) that affected her …

Tale Of Two Judiths: Queering Judith With The Works Of Judith Butler, Kat S. Lewis

Religious Studies Honors Projects

Biblical texts play a significant role in shaping expectations for behavior based on gender in Western societies. In my queer reading of the Book of Judith, I argue that Judith’s performance of gender is fluid and gender expansive. I use reader-response criticism to interpret Judith in conversation with the works of Judith Butler and Saba Mahmood on gender performativity, drag, and agency. This queer reading of Judith provides representation of gender expansiveness in biblical texts and explores queer possibilities in Judith as a way to challenge and subvert a patriarchal, heterosexist gender binary.

Teaching Sexuality On The Catholics & Cultures Website: A Refreshing Turn Toward The Longue Durée, Marc Roscoe Loustau

Journal of Global Catholicism

I present a close reading of the Catholics & Cultures (C&C) website’s treatment of sexuality-related issues and discuss this material in relation to debates about how to teach sexuality in religious studies and theology classrooms. The C&C website occasionally and intermittently uses a typical “contemporary issues” approach that considers sexuality in relation to legal and legislative decisions and government policies. In contrast, country profiles consistently situate sexuality in relation processes like nation building, urbanization, and lay Catholics’ growing authority. My interpretation highlights the site’s decision to emphasize the longue durée, long-term and deep structural processes driving cultural and religious changes. …

Book Review: Lori D. Ginzberg. Women And The Work Of Benevolence: Morality, Politics, And Class In The Nineteenth-Century United States. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990., Merritt A. Morgan

Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History

Lori D. Ginzberg's 1990 work, Women and the Work of Benevolence: Morality, Politics, and Class in the Nineteenth-Century United States, focuses on the ideas and socially benevolent practices of Protestant women of the prosperous middle and upper-middle-class during the 1820s to the 1880s in the northeast region of the United States. The author analyzes how contemporaries affirmed these values in women's benevolent work, which also promoted their status and brought about significant social changes in American culture.

Rebel Hearts, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Rebel Hearts (2021), directed by Pedro Kos.

A Reexamination Of Deborah As Prophet And Judge, Brandy Scritchfield

CTS Master of Theology (ThM) Theses

This study aims to set aside gender concerns related to Deborah and the interpretation of Judges 4–5 in order to determine if a clearer portrait emerges of Deborah as a prophet, a judge, or both without gender issues obscuring the picture. Chapter 1 provides a representative summary of Deborah’s interpretive history, which establishes how gender has been historically and incorrectly used as the primary interpretive key for understanding Deborah and other key parts of Judg 4–5. Chapter 2 discusses Deborah’s role as a judge and determines the text supports identifying her with this title, and chapter 3 does the same …

The Role Of Islam In Establishing Women's Rights In The Muslim World, Assad Khan

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This paper examines the literature surrounding women's rights in the Muslim world to determine the factors that have contributed to the oppression of women in the Muslim world and to understand the role that different interpretations of Islam can have on either restricting or improving the status of women in the Muslim world. The practices of Muslim people as a population deviate from what is prescribed by Islam in some cases, contributing to the misconception that the restrictive practices toward women in many Muslim-majority countries are founded in Islamic teachings. Factors such as individual levels of religiosity and adherence to …

Womanists Leading White People In Intergroup Dialogue To End Anti-Black Racism: An Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis, Tawana Angela Davis

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Womanism is a term curated by Alice Walker (2004) that centers Black women’s lived experiences, past and present, encouraging Black women to no longer look to others for their liberation (Floyd-Thomas, 2006). Soul 2 Soul Sister’s Facing Racism program is facilitated by Womanist instructors, who work with groups of mostly white people to address anti-Black racism. This qualitative study explored the experiences of white participants who took part in this program, Facing Racism, which holds Womanism as its central guiding principle. Although pre- and post-surveys were routinely conducted over the years about participants’ experiences with Facing Racism, this study sought …

Expatriate Middle Eastern Muslim Mothers’ Stories About Sex Education In U.S. Schools: Communication Privacy Challenges And Narrative Typologies, Nada Alfeir

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This study examines the stories of expatriate Middle Eastern Muslim (EMEM) mothers in the U.S. about how they talked with their children about the sexual education classes offered in U.S. public schools. Three concepts from the Communication Privacy Management theory (CPM; Petronio, 2002) were adapted to an interpretive narrative perspective drawn on Frank's (2013) typology of narrative types. A total of 15 EMEM mothers who had lived for more than one year in the U.S. were recruited in the study. Qualitative data were collected through written stories and interviews, and supplemented by the author's observations. All written stories and interviews …

Acknowledging Our Past: Race, Landscape And History, Alea Harris, Kaycia Best, Dieran Mcgowan, Destiny Shippy, Vera Oberg, Bryson Coleman, Luke Meagher, Rhiannon Leebrick Ph.D., Phillip Stone

Student Scholarship

This book is the product of nearly a year's worth of student research on Wofford College's history, undertaken as part of a grant by the Council of Independent Colleges in the Humanities Research for the Public Good initiative. The research was supervised and directed by Dr. Rhiannon Leebrick.

"Guiding Research Questions:

How did Wofford College and its early stakeholders support and participate in slavery?

How is the legacy of slavery present in the landscape of our campus (buildings, statues, names, etc.)?

How can we better understand Wofford as an institution during the time of Reconstruction through the Jim Crow era? …

Místicas Y Disidentes: Feminismo Teresiano En La Literatura Latinoamericana Del Siglo Xx, Almudena Vidorreta

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation addresses for the first time a gender-based approach to the understanding of Spanish mystic Saint Teresa’s role as a symbol of feminism, language identity and creative writing theorization in 20^th-century Latin American literature. Saint Teresa (1515-1582) was not only a model in her role as an intellectual for authors such as Delmira Agustini (1886-1914), Gabriela Mistral (1889-1957), Victoria Ocampo (1890-1979), Alfonsina Storni (1892-1938), Juana de Ibarborou (1892-1979), Teresa Wilms Montt (1893-1921), Dulce María Loynaz (1902-1997), Silvina Ocampo (1903-1993), Mercedes García Tudurí (1904-1997) y Alejandra Pizarnik (1936-1972), among others, but also a literary referent for those who …

Conflict Experienced By Lds Working Mothers, Sarah L. Maxfield

Marriott Student Review

This article analyzes and attempts to answer the question of what conflict LDS working mothers experience. It does this through a literature review, analyzing the different studies that have been conducted on the subject by looking at their findings, scope, and assessment of the situation. This article summarizes and extrapolates on the current academic literature surrounding working moms, religiosity, conflict, and the role of sanctification as one method of combating it.

“Deserting The Broad And Easy Way”: Southern Methodist Women, The Social Gospel, And The New Deal State, 1909-1939, Chelsea Hodge

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Over the course of three decades, white southern Methodist women took on issues of labor and poverty through their national women’s organization, the Woman’s Missionary Council (WMC). Between 1909 and 1939, the WMC focused their work on five groups of people they viewed as in need of their help: women, children, black southerners, immigrants, and rural people. Motivated by the Social Gospel and an intense belief that their faith led them to effect real change in the American South, the WMC intervened in people’s lives, pursuing reform that could at times be maternalistic and condescending but at other times radical …

Bloodied Hearts And Bawdy Planets: Greco-Roman Astrology And The Regenerative Force Of The Feminine In Shakespeare’S The Winter’S Tale, Christina E. Farella

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis offers a new reading of William Shakespeare’s late play The Winter’s Tale (1623), positing that in order to understand this complex and eccentric work, we must read it with a complex and eccentric eye. In The Winter’s Tale, planets strike without warning, pulling at hearts, wombs, and blood, impacting the health and emotional experience of characters in the play. This work is renowned for its inconsistent formal structure; the first half is a tragedy set in winter, but abruptly shifts to a comedy set in spring/summer in its latter half. What’s more, is that planets, luminaries, and …

A Way Of Life: Trauma And Resilience Among Muslim Sexual Minorities In Cape Town, South Africa, Afshan Kamrudin

Anthropology Theses and Dissertations

Ask any Cape Town Muslim “what is Islam?”, and the first words that will come out of their mouths will be, “Islam is a way of life”. Among Muslim sexual minorities, the answer is resoundingly the same. Stating that Islam is a way of life indicates there are prescribed rules and codes of conduct that one must follow in order to be a Muslim. As such, the experience of these prescriptions and expectations are culture specific and context-dependent. The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the ways in which Muslim sexual minorities living in Cape Town, South Africa experience …

Pluralism As A Social Practice: A Pragmatist Approach To Engaging Diversity In Public Life, Mary Leah Friedline

Religious Studies Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation lays a theoretical framework for rethinking the ways in which political and moral philosophers conceive pluralism and diversity in public life. I argue that many philosophers who write on the topic do not have a sophisticated understanding of religion, are not sufficiently attentive to historically produced power differentials, and/or do not adequately recognize the intersectional dimensions of diversity. Building on Jeffrey Stout’s notion of democracy as a social practice, and supplemented with Cornel West’s understanding of democratic faith, I use my more complex account of diversity to argue that pluralism is best approached as a social practice, instead …

Hinduism As A Political Weapon: Gender Socialization And Disempowerment Of Women In India, Aindrila Haldar

Master's Theses

There is a growing use of religion as a political tool to control Hindu women in India, contributing to a rise in gender inequality. Immediate authoritative patriarchal domains such as household and politics, continuously speak of “protecting” Hindu women by disregarding their voices and needs. Consequently, potentially creating a loss of agency among women. This research will use inductive reasoning to understand the position of Hindu women in modern Indian society. Particularly, through the understanding of the involvement of religion in the political and household sphere. Hindu women are highly influenced by the expectations of what being an ”ideal” woman …

The Contradictory Interpretations Of Genesis 4:7—Ellen G. White Versus The Theology Of Ordination Study Committee Position 1, Michael F. Younker

Andrews University Seminary Student Journal

Reflecting a widespread tension throughout the world of biblical interpretation, Ellen G. White and the Theology of Ordination Study Committee Position 1 (TOSC1) propose contradictory interpretations of Genesis 4:7. Given the content of Genesis 4:7, which addresses issues relating to psychology and authority, which are often connected with Genesis 3:16 and gender, and its use by the TOSC1, the promotion of the TOSC1 interpretation of Genesis 4:7 within Seventh-day Adventist circles as well as broader Christianity will encourage further unpleasant confrontations concerning the issues related to the psychology of gender and authority in Scripture.

Commodification Of Black Bodies, Emmanuel Yeboah

Womanist Ethics

No abstract provided.

Lay Latitude: Latter-Day Saint Women's Agency In Northwest Arkansas, Andrew Tompkins

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The question of women’s agency in gender-traditional religions has been the subject of much scholarly attention over the past four decades, but little research has been done focusing specifically on Latter-day Saint women and their identities and roles within the structure and practice of the Church. In popular media representations, Latter-Day Saint women are often depicted as submissive or surviving, either powerless pawns or resistant warriors. However, many Latter-day Saint women find fulfillment and empowerment within and because of, rather than outside or in spite of, the institutional Church. In this thesis, I explore women’s agency in Northwest Arkansas’ Greendale …

An Actor's Process In Bridging The Gap Between First-Generation And Multi-Generational African-American Identities., Mutiyat Ade-Salu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reflects my process assimilating into the role of Chelle in the production of Detroit '67 at the University of Louisville. Although there have been instances of actors crossing lines of gender, nationality, race, and even sexuality, to perform roles in contemporary theatre, discussion about generational differences is almost non-existent. Through historical research, first-hand interviews, and conventional acting methods, I explore the world of my role, searching for spirituality, authenticity, and identity. Additionally, I explain my use of The WAY Method ®, a process I began creating in 2014 to help actors be clear with who they are before …

"No One's Gonna Say That At Church:" Women's Experiences With Infertility In Christian Faith Communities, Donna Paulsen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study explores women’s experiences with infertility in Christian faith communities. Drawing from nine one-on-one interviews, the author argues that the presence of particular religious ideologies, social interactions, and rituals within faith communities contributed to the stigmatization and marginalization of study participants. Employing Muted Group Theory, the author uncovers the communicative strategies infertile women employ to resist these oppressive practices. A qualitative analysis of participants’ narratives presents two principal categories, containing a total of four findings relating to the harmful beliefs and practices of these women’s faith communities. The author argues that the veneration of motherhood and children suggests that …