By Leah Elizabeth Comeau. My research is situated at the intersection of the fields of religious history and of material culture. Geographically, I work in South Asia, especially Tamil South India and I utilize an intersectional feminist framework to approach modern and medieval expressions of religion. In my work, I routinely encounter scholars of anthropology, […]
By Christy Cobb and Bailey Freeburn. SPOILER ALERT: This post contains information about the plot of the Hulu show the Handmaid’s Tale, season one and two. It does not contain any information about the newly released season three. “Don’t be a Martha. Be a Mary.” Being raised in southern Christian households and churches, both of […]
By Katherine Dugan. Unplanned: What She Saw Changed Everything is the newest pro-life film to hit mainstream movie theaters. Released in late March 2019, Unplanned follows the young adulthood of Abby Johnson. Abby is depicted as a bright-eyed woman who wants to, as she puts it, “do good in the world.” Based on her memoir, […]
By Kecia Ali. No manthology is an island, Entire of itself, Every manthology is a piece of the continent, A part of the main. If a contents list be woman-free, Our field is the less. As well as if a conference were. As well as if a panel of thy friend’s Or of thine own […]
By Sarah Imhoff. Manthologies are a network problem. I’m not talking about some technical connectivity issue; I’m talking about networks of humans. Who knows whom, how and why, and how they are connected. Anthologies full of the work of male scholars are not a problem solely because of networks, but thinking about the networking aspect […]
By Alison L. Joseph. It has taken me months to build up the courage to write this post about my personal contribution to the preservation of gender imbalance. But here’s the truth, even for a person who is committed to gender parity, achieving an ideal is very challenging. You might stop reading right now and […]
By Michal Raucher. Recently I opened my email to find an alert from an academic listserv about a book titled, Kashrut and Jewish Food Ethics, edited by Shmuly Yanklowitz. As an active member of the Society of Jewish Ethics and an associate editor of the Journal of Jewish Ethics, I eagerly scrolled down to read […]
By Claire E. Sufrin. The Jewish holiday of Purim fell this year on Thursday, March 21. The holiday celebrates the survival of the Jews of Shushan long, long ago as told in the biblical book of Esther. The story centers on Esther, a young Jewish woman, whose uncle Mordecai encourages her to compete to become […]
“To be alive at such an epoch is a privilege, to be a woman then is sublime.”[1] These are the words of scholar and activist, Anna Julia Cooper. Her historical assessment is piercing as she wrestles with the “unproclaimed influence of black women” in her book, A Voice from the South by A Black Woman from […]
By Mika Ahuvia. A few years ago, I was asked to contribute to a conference panel discussion of sexual violence in foundational religious texts, with particular emphasis on giving survivors resources. I decided to return to a text I’d studied years earlier in a progressive yeshiva, a text which had always troubled me. What stayed […]