The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Women’s Studies in Religion: (Bloomsbury Handbooks)

The handbook offers interreligious and multicultural perspectives on women’s studies in religion in conversation with specific contextualized gender-biased justice challenges. Contributing authors address 25 current and trending themes from their diverse socio-cultural-religious backgrounds. Themes move across the spectrum of women’s studies in religion, blurring the boundaries beyond “religious studies” to include perspectives from ethics, philosophy, sociology, economics, and law as. Religious diversity addresses challenges for women’s studies through the lens of Wicca, Buddhist, Asian Trans Pacific, Hinduism, Judaism, Muslima, and Christian. The handbook is practical, contemporary, and relevant as it moves theory to practical application in the section on challenging and changing system gender injustice with chapters on sexual violence and the #MeToo movement, femicide and feminicide, a Mohawk response to colonial dominion and violations to Indigenous lands and women, and a religio-politico witness for love and justice, include how to engage the theories of women’s studies in religion in the public square through civic engagement to create empowerment for actual, practical change. It shows the future movement of the becoming of women’s studies with chapters digital activism, reimagining women’s mosque spaces online, minoritized sexual identities, and spiritual homelessness, and charges readers to see “hope now” by challenging and changing gender injustice.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments Foreword by Rabia Harris, Community of Living Traditions Editor’s Introduction by Helen T. Boursier, College of St. Scholastica SECTION ONE • A FIRMLY FLUID FOUNDATION FOR WOMEN’S STUDIES IN RELIGION 1 A Work in Progress: Feminist Scholarship Shaping God’s Image—Then and Now by Jacqueline J. Lewis, Middle Collegiate Church, New York 2 The Inclusive Language of God: Why It Matters for Women’s Studies in Religion by Yudit Kornberg Greenberg, Rollins Colleg 3 Doing Women’s Studies in Religion—A Methodology Primer for Moving from the Classroom into Real Life by Natalie Kertes Weaver, Ursuline College 4 Women’s Creative Research Methodologies on the Peripheries and at the Border: Latina Women’s Restorative Interventions through Art and Activism by Rebecca M. Berru-Davis, St. Catherine University, St. Paul, Minnesota SECTION TWO • ETHICAL CONNECTIONS 5 Where Ecofeminism Meets Religions: Contributions and Challenges by Heather Eaton, Saint Paul University in Ottawa, Canada 6 Reconfiguring Economic Sustainability: A Feminist Ethic for Liberty and Justice for All by Sharon D. Welch, Meadville Lombard Theological School(Unitarian Universalist) 7 Feminist Ethics and the Harms of Credibility Excess by Candace Jordan, Princeton University, PhD candidate 8 Do Not Pass Me By: A Womanist Reprise and Response to Health Care’s Cultural Dismissal and Erasure of Black Women’s Pain by Anjeanette M.Allen, Chicago Theological Seminary, PhD Student SECTION THREE • RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY AND WOMEN’S STUDIES IN RELIGION 9 Constructing Wicca as “Women’s Religion”: A By-Product of Feminist Religious Scholarship by Michelle Mueller, Santa Clara University 10 For All Sentient Beings: The Question of Gender in Tibetan and Himalayan Buddhist Communities by Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa, Occidental College 11 Introducing Asian Transpacific American Feminist Theology by Keun-Joo Christine Pae, Denison University 12 “I Am the One Who Will Change the Direction of the World”: A Female Guru’s Response to Sexual Inequality and Violence in Hinduism by Antoinette E.DeNapoli, Texas Christian University 13 Women in the Jewish Tradition: A Brief Overview of Jewish Feminism in the Last 50 Years by Yudit Kornberg Greenberg, Rollins College 14 Muslimah Theology and Praxis by Zayn Kassam, Pomona College 15 Homiletical Changes and Preaching Leadership of Women in the Christian Church by HyeRan Kim-Cragg, Emmanuel College, University of Toronto SECTION FOUR • CHALLENGING AND CHANGING SYSTEMIC GENDER INJUSTICE 16 What’s Religion Got to Do with Sexual Violence and the #MeToo Movement? by Marie M. Fortune, FaithTrust Institute 17 Femicide in Global Perspective: A Feminist Critique by Helen T. Boursier, College of St. Scholastica 18 Call to Accountability: Women’s Studies in Religion Critiques State Culpability to Feminicide through Border Controls and Exclusion from Asylum by Helen T. Boursier, College of St. Scholastica 19 Doctrine of Discovery: A Mohawk Feminist Response to Colonial Dominion and Violations to Indigenous Lands and Women by Dawn Martin-Hill,McMaster University 20 Women’s Religio-Political Witness for Love and Justice by Rosemary P. Carbine, Whittier College SECTION FIVE • FUTURE MOVEMENT—THE BECOMING OF WOMEN’S STUDIES IN RELIGION 21 Feminism, Religion, and the Digital World by Gina Messina, Ursuline College 22 Documenting, Changing, and Reimagining Women’s Mosque Spaces Online by Krista Melanie Riley, Vanier College, Montreal, Quebec, Canada 23 Minoritized Sexual Identities and the Theo-Politics of Democracy by Ludger Viefhues-Bailey, LeMoyne College 24 Spiritual Homelessness and Homemaking: A Nomadic Spirituality for Survivors of Childhood Violence by Denise Starkey, College of St. Scholastica 25 Hope Now by Cynthia L. Rigby, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary 26 Resources for Clarification, Education, and Action Index About the Contributors

About the Author :
Helen T. Boursier is a professor of theology at College of St. Mary and Austin Graduate School of Theology. She is a founding member of Feminist Theology in Religion, an academic research group who publish the Journal of Theological Feminist Research. She has a PhD in Theology and a PhD of Divinity and is an ordained priest.

Review :
These 25 essays by faculty and graduate students have great classroom potential. Contributions include smart theoretical essays (Michelle Mueller's "Constructing Wicca as 'Women's Religion' A By-Product of Feminist Religious Scholarship" shows how academics can sway popular imagination); compelling case studies (e.g., Antoinette DeNapoli's "'I Am the One Who Will Change the World' A Female Guru's Response to Sexual Inequality and Violence in Hinduism" and Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa's "For All Sentient Beings: The Question of Gender in Tibetan and Himalayan Buddhist Communities"); interrogations of systemic issues (e.g., Candace Johnson's fascinating "Feminist Ethics and the Harms of Credibility Excess" and Dawn Martin Hill's searing "Doctrine of Discovery: A Mohawk Feminist Response to Colonial Dominion and Violations to Indigenous Lands and Women"); and guidance on moving from theory to praxis (Sharon Welch's "Reconfiguring Economic Sustainability: A Feminist Ethic for Liberty and Justice for All"). The focus of the collection is more on lived experience--trauma, #MeToo, familial and state-sponsored violence, postcolonial and eco-feminist readings, ethnography, language, reclamation of tradition, online religion--than on textual interpretation or doctrine. Resources include glossaries of hashtags, people, terms, and organizations. Recommended.