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Growing up in the liberal segregated south of Durham, NC in the late 1950s and 1960s, one of the things that was drummed into little Black kids heads was the power and right of voting. From Civics classes to conversations in our homes to messages from stormy pulpits, we learned the story of the hard […]
This is the second in a series of blogs expanding the covnersation from the JFSR Roundtable to honor the 50th anniversary of Valerie Saiving’s article, “The Human Situation: A feminine View.” A newspaper clipping from the New York Times has been taped to my office door since December 2006. The heading on the page […]
Harvard Professor Karen King’s recent discovery of a Coptic papyrus that mentions Jesus’ wife and speaks of a female disciple is simply the latest contribution to a long line of discoveries about early Christian women. In stressing that hers is the first word on this papyrus, but not the last, she sets a model for […]
Dear Americans: In 1945, French philosopher Jean Paul-Sartre reflected on his visit to America and wrote, “In this land of freedom and equality there live thirteen million untouchables. They wait on your table, they polish your shoes, they operate your elevator, they carry your suitcases into your compartment, but they have nothing to do with […]
Is there anybody left who hasn’t heard about the fourth-century papyrus Karen L. King, professor at Harvard Divinity School, calls “The Gospel of Jesus’s wife”? The fragment contains only a few lines of Coptic text, one of them stating: “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife…’” It is still uncertain if the fragment is for “real,” […]
The recent Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 28.1 features a roundtable discussion on Fifty Years of Reflection on Valerie Saiving. Contributors to the Roundtable will bring the conversation to the Feminism in Religion forum to open the discussion to an interactive audience. Throughout the next few months, contributors will feature a selection from their […]
On the morning of November 5, 2008, we gathered for our daily worship in Yale Divinity School’s Marquand Chapel. There was much joy and celebration in the air as almost all of those gathered felt a new day had dawned across America. I was doubtful. Perhaps it was the cranky ethicist in me peaking around […]
“There are no records confirming that women were taken away by force and there are no accounts [by former Japanese soldiers], but the Kono statement came out based on the accounts of comfort women,” said Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda at the Diet on August 27, 2012. Amid increasing tensions over territorial disputes between Japan […]
In recent years, you may have noticed bumper stickers asking “Who’s Your Farmer?” Over the last few months, I have been a farmer. Last January, I faced a final push of completing my dissertation that would keep me anchored to my desk and indoors. Longing for summer, the outdoors, and working with my hands, I […]
I want to open a conversation about “radical feminism” so that scholars and activists can have some new, useful things to say when the phrase is bandied about in the media. Until now, I have heard a lot of people distance themselves from it, try to explain it away as someone else’s brand, or ignore […]