Feminist Religious Studies Research Articles

A Response from the LAB

A Response from the LAB Monique Moultrie (bio) and Sarah Emanuel (bio) The CoLaboratory (LAB) branch of Feminist Studies in Religion (FSR) was established in June 2020 to create space for exploratory projects within the FSR organization. As shared on the FSR website, the LAB facilitates in-person and online public engagement to help share and develop ideas, resources, and tools that advance inclusiveness and feminist imagination. Through these initiatives, the LAB links feminist scholarship and activism to strengthen the collaborative opportunities among academics, activists, religious leaders, and grassroots organizers.1 The broader FSR organization created a list of action items to combat anti-Black racism at the same time the LAB was announced as FSR’s fourth unit, which now exists alongside the journal, blog, and books. This timeline, although a coincidence, is interesting. While the FSR action items (see below) were created in response to the George Floyd protests, members of the LAB—formerly known as the Forum2—had been raising concerns within subcommittee meetings about the racialized structures of FSR. By the time the action items were crafted, many LAB members were already of the perspective that organizational change and truth-telling needed to occur. Projects within the LAB are continually rotating, but current works include the Feminists Talk Religion podcast, a self-reflective survey on FSR’s history, and a syllabus project where teaching resources will be housed on the LAB’s website. Needless to say, each project brings with it the following helpful organizational commitments: • Recognize the work of Black feminist and womanist scholars • Invite more women of color to FSR’s boards and leadership [End Page 75] • Facilitate intentional conversations of anti-Black racism and white supremacy • Expand our community • Self-reflect on FSR’s history and current practices • Host combined AAR/SBL panel(s) on anti-Black racism, white supremacy, and feminist religious studies • Gather resources • Foster syllabi collaboration3 Below are snapshots of the LAB’s current projects and how they engage FSR’s commitments to combat white supremacy and anti-Black racism. Podcast The Feminists Talk Religion (FTR) podcast launched in February 2020. Episodes range from fifteen-minute minisodes to hour-long conversations and include feminist discussions about religion-related topics. The podcast subcommittee has included within its bylaws the intent to always have at least one woman of color showcased on each episode. Episodes do not shy away from the hard conversations. As cofounder and cohost, Oluwatomisin Oredein states in the introductory episode, “We’re taking seriously diversity. . . . If [this podcast] feels too perfect, if it feels too clean, if it feels too white, too Christian, too something, that’s a fear.” That means we’re not doing it right.4 Some recent episode titles and descriptions include: “Racing the Pandemic: Anti-Asian Sentiment in the COVID-19 ERA,” April 2020, with Peace Lee and Lisa Beyeler-Yvarra, hosted by Oluwatomisin Oredein This week’s bonus episode interrogates the social effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially toward the Asian and Asian American population in the United States. Within the United States, the coronavirus disease has not only uncovered how human systems and treatment of the world have historically caused earthly harm but also how social strain exposes cultural brokenness, agitates interpersonal animosity, and incites racist violence. ________ “White Institutional Fragility: A Raw Protest!,” June 2020, with Sharon Jacob, Angela N, Parker, and Karri L. Whipple Three New Testament scholars, a womanist, a white feminist, and an Indian postcolonial feminist discuss the issues of our time and what it means to build [End Page 76] a multiracial coalition within the academy to begin to dismantle the whiteness within our institutions, our scholarship, and the world. ________ “Immigration, Work, and Faith in the Midwest,” November 2020, with Kristy Nabhan-Warren, hosted by Naira Leão Working at a meatpacking plant can be dangerous and exhausting. That is the reality of Latino and refugee workers in this industry, who turn to their faith to cope with the difficulties of the workplace. In this episode, Kristy Nabhan-Warren discusses her research with a community of mostly immigrant workers in the Midwest. We also talk about the surprises, messiness, and nuances that emerge...

Secular and Religious Feminisms: A Future of Disconnection?

This article identifies a disciplinary disconnection between secular and religious feminisms. While areas of study such as women’s, gender and feminist studies, and disciplines like feminist studies in religion, spirituality and theology advance understanding of gender relations, they are forms of analysis that rarely keep company. As we argue, there is a disconnection grounded in a sacred/secular divide (Magee, 1999) evident through the different stages of the women’s movement and feminist history. Not only is this disciplinary disconnection mutually unhelpful, but it has implications for the ways gendered religious and secular discourses operate in the public square and therefore, has implications for the future of feminist theology. This article first identifies the lack of relationship between secular and religious feminisms illustrated in three interrelated ways: secular feminisms’ neglect of women’s religious experiences; feminist religious studies’ reservedness; and the sacred/secular binary operating in the academy. We then suggest this disconnection extends to the most recent expressions of feminism – the third wave. This article then discusses what both disciplines lose from a lack of dialogue and what might be gained by a closer relationship; particularly when contemporary events in the public sphere (such as the Pussy Riots) highlight the importance of paying attention to the way women’s experiences, and secular and religious discourses interact.

Helighetens feminisering. Makt och mening i kulten av kvinnliga helgon

The issue of how women are represented within religious systems have since long been a central concern in feminist religious studies. However, a narrow focus on female imagery in religion tends to obscure the nature of real women's active involvement in religious practice. This article discusses the cult of two different kinds of female saints in contemporary Portugal, both of which are ascribed sainthood in populär belief, but are denied such a status by the Church. These female saints serve as symbols in Portuguese Catholicism, but they can also be regarded as religious actors. Saint Alexandrina of Balasar is a "noneater", i e a woman whose sole form of nourishment is said to be the wafer received during Holy Communion, a religious behaviour that can be traced to the medieval period. Saint Maria Adelaide is a case of a populär cult of an incorrupt body. Such a cult may arise ifthe corpse of a deceased and buried person after a certain amount of time has not decomposed. I argue that the cults of these two types of saints are anchored in religious practices predominated by women. Femaledevotees play an important role in the cultural construction of the saints, and in upholdingtheircult. Although in different ways, the two types of cult challenge orthodox conceptions of sanctity as well as the structural power of the Church. The pilgrimage sites of these saints can be seen as expressions of a feminization of Christianity; the pilgrims worship an ordinary woman who becomes the mediator between God and humans on a site outside the control of the Catholic Church.

Feminist studies in religion and a radical democratic ethos 1

AbstractFeminist studies in religion contribute to the fashioning of a radical democratic political culture and the creation of an egalitarian politics of meaning. In the South African context feminist studies are important elements in the emergence of a democratic and just society since they provide a theoretical framework and intellectual space for transforming kyriarchal knowledges and deeply inculcated values of oppression. Several issues are addressed, namely the nature of feminist religious studies, feminist religious studies as a knowledge producing discourse, and the institutional location of feminist studies in religion.