Book Description
Exploring six Gospel texts in which women encounter Jesus, Frances Taylor Gench encourages us to view these stories anew through the eyes of contemporary biblical scholarship. Summarizing and making accessible the work of a diversity of feminist scholars while also engaging many of the more traditional voices of the past, she examines each story's language, structure, and literary and socio-cultural context, and recounts many traditional and contemporary interpretations. In the process, she opens up new possibilities for reading these texts. Includes helpful questions for discussion.
Stories discussed: the Canaanite woman of Matthew 15:21-29; a hemorrhaging woman and Jairus's daughter of Mark 5:21-43; Martha and Mary in Luke 10:38-42; a woman bent over and a daughter of Abraham in Luke 13:10-17; the Samaritan woman of John 4; and a woman accused of adultery in John 7:53ff.
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International Women's Writing: New Landscapes of Identity (Contributions in Women's Studies)
Manufacturer: Greenwood Press
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ASIN: 0313290458 |
Book Description
This collection of essays on women's writing since 1945 is the first to explore the diversity of female identity as it is expressed in the literatures of Africa, India, Latin America, the Caribbean, Western Europe, Russia, Canada (Quebec), and the United States (including texts by African, Chinese, Hispanic, and Jewish American writers). The essays address the issues of sexism, racism, classism, heterosexism and colonialism in the construction of identity. They employ a wide range of methodologies from socio-criticism to postmodernism, and exhibit the breadth and scope of current feminist literary theories. The main focus is on the interrelationships between female identity and place, where "place" suggests both physical and metaphorical space.
Book Description
Schneiders invites you to dwell in Jesus' words in order to know the liberating truth God is. This book makes rich and highly symbolic Gospel accesible to lay readers seeking to nourish their spirituality.
Customer Reviews:
Groundbreaking Scripture commentary.......2001-07-19
Sandra Schneiders is a dynamic teacher as well as being a gifted Biblical theologian and writer. Her refreshing commentary on the Gospel of John helps us see what very few male theologians have been able or willing to see. Her insights are backed up by splendid research and intelligent thought.Her exploration of the Samaritan Woman, for example , in the 4th chapter of John allow us to peer deeply into the real meaning of the text. This is not about Jesus' encounter with one woman. It is about the Johannine community whose members were struggling with their life situation, the tensions over roles for women and men , the meaning of authority in the new dispensation which Jesus has begun. Anyone seriously interested in Scripture should read this fascinating book.
Eisegesis.......2000-10-02
Sister Schneiders shows little interest in the text of the Gospel of Saint John. This is just a pretext to do a predictable feminist trashing of the Catholic Church's traditional interpretation of these texts. Sister looks at the Gospel and ---surprise!--- Jesus turns out to be an ecofeminist of the first order.
Not convincing, but sadly typical of the decline of Scriptural fellowship.
Written that you may believe.......2000-07-11
The promise of the subtitle of this interpretation of the Gospel according to John speaks eloquently to what Sandra Schneiders has brought to life in this well researched theological work. As she has noted in the text, one does not simply read the fourth gospel for it is in interacting with it that Jesus becomes real. For me the chief benefit of immersing the self in Sandra's reflection and research has been a deepened experience of the Risen Christ. I have encountered herein a Jesus who is truly the symbol of the God I only begin to know.
Book Description
Passengers disco dancing in The Love Boat’s Acapulco Lounge. A young girl walking by a marquee advertising Deep Throat in the made-for-TV movie Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway. A frustrated housewife borrowing Orgasm and You from her local library in Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. Commercial television of the 1970s was awash with references to sex. In the wake of the sexual revolution and the women’s liberation and gay rights movements, significant changes were rippling through American culture. In representing—or not representing—those changes, broadcast television provided a crucial forum through which Americans alternately accepted and contested momentous shifts in sexual mores, identities, and practices.
Wallowing in Sex is a lively analysis of the key role of commercial television in the new sexual culture of the 1970s. Elana Levine explores sex-themed made-for-TV movies; female sex symbols such as the stars of Charlie’s Angels and Wonder Woman; the innuendo-driven humor of variety shows (The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, Laugh-In), sitcoms (M*A*S*H, Three’s Company), and game shows (Match Game); and the proliferation of rape plots in daytime soap operas. She also uncovers those sexual topics that were barred from the airwaves. Along with program content, Levine examines the economic motivations of the television industry, the television production process, regulation by the government and the tv industry, and audience responses. She demonstrates that the new sexual culture of 1970s television was a product of negotiation between producers, executives, advertisers, censors, audiences, performers, activists, and many others. Ultimately, 1970s television legitimized some of the sexual revolution’s most significant gains while minimizing its more radical impulses.
Book Description
Less than 30 years ago it was unheard of for a woman to be a rabbi. Now, not only are women being ordained as rabbis; they are changing the way all people—not just women, not just Jews—think and feel about Judaism.
In this ground-breaking book, more than 50 women rabbis come together to offer their own inspiring commentaries on the Torah, following the traditional weekly reading. For the first time, women's unique experiences and perspectives are applied to the entire Five Books of Moses, offering us the first comprehensive commentary by women.
Included are commentaries by the first women ever ordained in the Reform, Reconstructionist and Conservative movements; women from across these denominations who are congregational leaders, Hillel college campus rabbis, community service professionals, academics and chaplains; women from the United States, Canada, Israel and South America. This book offers a women's perspective and a feminist perspective, to inspire all of us in gaining deeper meaning from the Torah.
Customer Reviews:
Feminist analysis in dazzling variety.......2002-11-03
Is part of your Sabbath preparation or observance picking up a book and reading a short (5-10 minute) essay about the parasha of the week --- or would you like it to be? If so The Women's Torah Commentary (Rabbi Elyse Goldstein, ed., Jewish Lights, 2000) may be just what you could use. The book has 54 essays --- one for each Torah portion. Each essay in this anthology is written by a different ordained woman Rabbi, or one who is soon to be ordained.
The book provides a distinctly feminist analysis. The editor wanted writers who "would sing the song of women - to speak in a woman's voice." And from what I've seen, there seems relatively little of the male-bashing that sometime mars feminist analysis, especially of the Humash.
Many essays deal with women characters, but since we are often told very little about them, the writers often reach into midrash to flesh these characters out, and then add some imaginings of their own to the mix to draw their lessons. This is seen for example in the discussion of the unnamed wife of Noah, and in the treatment of Asenath, the wife of Joseph.
Of course, many readings have no women present, but that does not stymie a feminist analysis. One imaginative treatment is of parasha Pekudei, where the author draws a parallel between the construction of the mishkan (desert Tabernacle), and the human birthing process.
Not every essay is a gem. The one on Tzav stuck me as uninspired, with the reference to women little more than pasted in. Still, there is a ringing affirmation of Eve's conduct, an intriguing connection drawn between kashrut and eating disorders, a fine comparison on the Rachel/Leah and Jacob/Esau struggles, and an inspiring piece on "Community as a Sacred Space" to name just a few of the winners.
You might think that a book of commentary with the same overall analytical approach (feminist) in most essays would start to sound the same after a while, but the approaches, themes, and writing styles provide a great deal of variety. There is a significant emphasis on transformation and growth, which is not surprising since women who choose to become rabbis are often people seeking to make a significant change themselves.
The book ends with 35 pages of biographical notes, in which each contributor provides a quote on how or why she came to be a Rabbi.
a pitiful enterprise.......2002-08-29
My review will be short and to the point. If these radical feminist women "rabbis" are so pretentious and arrogant as to claim that the Holy Torah was the work of some male chauvinist pigs - God forbid - then, I must ask, why bother re-writing it and re-interpreting it at all? Just call it what it is, and let it go! What a pitiful waste of time it was to spend all that time explaining a text that was written by some lowlife male Rabbis who obviously hated women with a passion!
The truth is, of course, that those Rabbis were smartly spending all their time explaining a truly Divine document - and all those fanciful "interpretations" penned by the 50 or so women "rabbis" were indeed a truly pitiful enterprise and a waste of time and ink.
H.K.
Thoughtful, complex, scholarly, fascinating analysis........2002-03-29
The Women's Torah Commentary: New Insights From Women Rabbis On The 54 Weekly Torah Portions is a massive compendium of interpretations by more than fifty female rabbis that substantially broadens the scope of a true understanding of the sacred text of the Torah. Scarcely a generation (30 years) ago it was unheard of for women to be ordained as rabbis; now a comprehensive, extensive, and exhaustive commentary contains their point of view to inspire all faithful believers. A complex, thought provoking, scholarly, and fascinating analysis The Women's Torah Commentary is a superbly presented and very highly recommended addition to Judaic Studies reading lists and reference collections.
The must-buy for any Bat Mitzvah and everyone else.......2000-10-24
When you picture a rabbi, do you picture a young, beardless, mother of three? You should. As Rabbi Goldstein writes in the introduction, Abraham Geiger wrote in 1837 that "our whole religious life will profit from the beneficial influence which feminine hearts will bestow upon it." Rabbi Elyse Goldstein, a 1983 HUC-JIR grad, is the leader of the Kolel Adult Center for Liberal Jewish Learning program in Toronto , a program that is so successful that they are building their own building. She wanted to be a rabbi since the day of her Bat Mitzvah ceremony. She knows that divrei Torah by women provide a unique perspective. I predict that her book will be the bat mitzvah gift book of choice in this decade. Over fifty, YES FIFTY, women rabbis teach the reader with inspiring commentaries, and NOT JUST feminist commentaries on the parsha's that deal with the Hebrew matriarchs. No, this is in the weekly Torah portion format, starting with Bereshit/Genesis' first chapter (Bereshit) and ending with Davarim/Deuteronomy's last chapter (Vzot Habrachah/The Death of Moses). The week by week format is an asset, and makes it an excellent resource. And not only does the book contain enlightening commentaries, but there are nearly half page biographies for each of the rabbis who provide the commentaries. These bios provide as much enjoyment as the commentaries, since they provide a profile of each woman's path to the rabbinate. The Foreword is by Rabbi Amy Eilberg (JTS, 85). In it she lays the groundwork for women in the rabbinate (beginning with Regina Jonas in 1935, Sally Preisand in 1972 and Sandy Sasso in 1974) and its feminization. Some of my favorite commentaries were Rabbi Lori Forman's (JTS, 88) Bereshit discourse on the creation of Eve; Rabbi Rebecca Alpert's (RRC, 76) Shmot drash on Tziporah; Rabbi Karyn Kedar's (HUC, 85) Ve-era commentary on the many names on God; Rabbi Ilene Schneider's (RRC, 76) Shemini discourse on Kashrut, Food, Women , and Eating Disorders; Rabbi Gila Colman Ruskin's (HUC, 83) insight into Ekev- Circumcision, Womb, and Spiritual Intimacy; Rabbi Barbara Rosman Penzer's (RRC, 87) commentary on Serach daughter of Asher in Vayechi; and Rabbi Helaine Ettinger's (HUC, 91) drash on Tazria, niddah, and brit milah. And, of course, there are 47 more.
Book Description
Xena, Buffy, Lara Croft. WWF, The Sopranos, Witchblade, La Femme Nikita. The women of pop culture are center stage and as tough as ever. Action Chicks is a groundbreaking collection high-lighting the heroines we've grown to worship-and their impact on society. What can they tell us about women in 2003? How does popular culture depict women? Do the characters escape traditional gender role expectations? Or do they adhere to sexual, racial, ethnic, and class stereotypes? The essays in Action Chicks provide fans with a new look at their favorite icons and their relationship to the popular media machine.
Customer Reviews:
A very weak book.......2007-01-27
Personally I really didn't care for this book. To me it focused on the downside of the most popular, strong women charactrs such as Lara Croft, Wonder Woman, etc.
In Chapter 1 it talks about the character Lara Croft. Yes we know the character was designed by men and primarily for men but I bet more females started playing video games when they had such a strong kickass woman character. I know I did. Yes she has a thin waist, big boobs and she's pretty. I won't even get into the white arguement. I don't think her character would be so popular w/ men and women alike if she was 200 pounds, no boobs, and she wasn't pretty. Sexy thin women sell that's all there is to it! It might not be right but it's reality in this day and age.Men play for an entirely different reason than women.
Chapter 2 pretty much stays in th same vein now this time it's the character Barbwire, comic book character Lady Rawhide and Wonder Woman.
They must be Domanitrixs cause they dress in black leather or carry a whip or lasso. Give me a break.
Chapter 3 does have some merits it talks about girl action figures. How they started becoming more visible.
Chapter 6 made a good point why exactly did Max from Dark Angel, Buffy, & Xena all die around a two month period.
Chapter 9 about female friendhip in Xena and Buffy.
All in all I was expecting better!!!Just go to your local library if you still want to read it. Don't waste your money on this one.
A profoundly disappointing collection on an otherwise fascinating subject.......2006-06-07
When Susan Faludi published BACKLASH in 1991, one of her chapters was devoted to the regressive representations of women in TV and film. There was even the hint of resignation that this was not a temporary blip, but perhaps a permanent or long term situation. Luckily and in part thanks to Faludi calling attention to the backlash, instead we saw in popular culture an explosion of images of strong women. In TV alone we have seen the emergence of such characters as Dana Scully, Xena, Buffy Summers, Aeryn Sun, Sydney Bristow, Max Guevera, Kathryn Janeway, and Veronica Mars, not to mention those Gilmore girls. Even shows not specifically centered on strong women have them as a matter of course, such as Kate Austen on LOST or Samantha Carter on STARGATE SG-1. Indeed, a chasm seems to separate our situation and Faludi's in 1991.
Given the richness of the subject, it is simply shocking how weak this collection of essays is. All anthologies are uneven, but this one contains a higher proportion of weak or simply awful essays than most. I don't have a confident explanation for why these essays are on the whole so weak, though they do share some common characteristics. Let me highlight a couple of these. I do want to add, however, that there are a couple of very good essays, in particular Renny Christopher's marvelously insightful essay on Aeryn Sun in FARSCAPE as well as the essay by the volume's editor on female action figures. But most of the essays are deeply flawed. Let me explain my problems with them.
One very obvious problem with several of the essays is that they either misread the shows that they discuss or almost intentionally misrepresent their content. For instance, one essay guilty of this is Sharon Ross's essay about female friendship in BUFFY and XENA. Most of what she says is unquestionably true about XENA and if the essay had been merely about that show would have been one of the stronger additions to the collection. But it is a terrible reading of BUFFY. She reads BUFFY as largely concerned with the kind of discussion and reevaluation of matters that she views as uniquely true of female friendship. If you read the essay without having seen the show, you would imagine that Willow was nearly the co-lead character of the show, instead of a member of an ensemble cast. In point of fact, BUFFY is most decidedly not a show about female friendship. In fact, excluding Willow, Buffy is actually more heterosocial in her relationships. In fact, Willow aside, Buffy relates more easily to men than to women. Apart from Willow, all her closest friends and confidantes are men, including Giles, Xander, Angel, and Spike. Her relations with women are almost always uneasy and conflicted, including her mother, Faith, Dawn, Cordelia, and Anya. Moreover, even including Willow there is never a point in the series where she primarily or exclusively goes to Willow for advice instead of Xander or Giles. To read BUFFY as primarily as a show about female friendship is a travesty. Ross also states that the show is at its "most effective when" it "offer[s] stories of the primary female friends resisting men's attempts to keep them apart." She then cites several shows as examples, including "I Robot, You Jane," "The 'I' in Team," and "Yoko." These are not bad episodes, but they are far, far from the show at its most effective and none would make any reasonable list of, say, the top twenty-five or thirty episodes of the show's 144. In other words, only by distorting BUFFY to a remarkable and untenable degree can it be made to be a show about female friendship. There is no question that there is a strong female friendship as one of many major constituent parts of the show, but it is hardly privileged in the way that Ross states.
Another example is Sara Crosby's essay on three supposed instances of suicidal self-sacrifice among TV action heroines due to the forceful suppression of strong female heroes by structures of patriarchy: Max at the end of Season One of DARK ANGEL, Buffy at the end of Season Five of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, and Xena in her show's series finale. I won't argue with the Xena part, because that is fairly accurate, but the characterization of Max and Buffy's deaths is utterly baffling. First, Crosby characterizes Max's death as a suicide, which is absurd, unless being shot by one's clone, over which one maintains utterly no control and therefore no agency, counts as a suicide. Agency and not similar DNA (and the DNA is only similar and not exact, since one of the themes of the show in Season Two--and it would have been THE theme of Season Three had it not been canceled--was Max's genetic uniqueness, which would have enabled her to save the world from annihilation) is acknowledged in every day language as determinative of suicide. But Crosby barely hints at the radical departure from normal language use she is making. It also isn't clear what structures of patriarchy she is talking about in DARK ANGEL. In fact, Manticore, which is the entity that kills Max, is totalitarian, not patriarchal. Unless one can generate a convincing essentialist definition of totalitarian as patriarchal this is not at all the same thing. There is in fact a remarkable disregard for gender at Manticore and one of Max's more striking traits, despite being played by a very beautiful woman, is that she has never been feminized. We could debate the fact that Jessica Alba is beautiful, but the brute fact of prime time television is that we will never, ever have an unlovely young person playing a lead role in such a show. Similarly, in talking of Buffy's death at the end of Season Five, it is impossible to identify the structures of patriarchy. Interestingly she never mentions the fact that the Big Bad of Season Five is a goddess except in passing. Buffy sacrifices herself to close the hell portal to save her sister and her friends because of some supernatural rules. Are the rules patriarchal? If not, it is difficult to see how her death becomes gendered. In other words, the entire essay is a colossal stretch.
The fundamental problem with these two and several other essays is that the writers do not seem to understand the different from actual society and a television series. A TV series may reflect society in the way it is conceived, but it does not actually contain that society. In fact, most of the TV series of the past fifteen years with strong female leads actually imagine a society that is different from the actual one. In our real society, there truly are systems of patriarchy that repress women and attempt to relegate them in lessened roles. But that system may not be replicated in a TV series. In fact, there is a gender utopianism in many of these shows. If one watches BUFFY or FARSCAPE or VERONICA MARS one will be struck by how rarely the ability of these women to take care of themselves is questioned by the males around them. As Renny Christopher points out in her brilliant final essay of the volume on FARSCAPE (an essay that alone justifies the purchase price), FARSCAPE is a representation of a world in which patriarchy does not exist. The Peacekeepers may be ruthless and totalitarian and authoritarian, but he makes no distinctions based on gender. But what is true of FARSCAPE is largely true of these other shows. The writers try to make the shows about issues that are really excluded by the show. Now, one might argue with how realistic the shows are by excluding or minimizing patriarchal structures (they aren't realistic, but that is because they are utopian: they are trying to show us a world that ought to be, a world in which women are allowed to be as strong as men), but you can't escape the fact that they are fictional worlds. In BUFFY a man does not react with shock if Buffy kills a demon with her bare hands in front of a male as in "The Prom." I haven't rewatched all of BUFFY in a year, but the only moment I can recall when someone was shocked that she could do what she did despite being female was the beginning of "The Gift," when a boy she has saved from a vampire asks her how she "did that." "It's what I do," she replies. "But you're just a girl." But even here the point is that an unrealistic burden has been placed upon her, causing her to feel the weight of the world on her shoulders, leading her to answer, "That's what I keep telling myself." But this is the exception. Normally no one acts shocked if she clears the Bronze of vampires in "Welcome to the Hellmouth, Pt. 2" or overcomes a large gang of demons in "Anne."
I guess what I'm objecting to is an overall intellectual clumsiness in these essays. As a grad student I read countless bad essays along the lines of the ones here and I think at least many of them are a result of the "publish or perish" mentality dominating American higher education. And there is a push if you are in gender studies to take some of the central assumptions and apply them to a wide range of subject matter. It is as if they strive to understand their discipline first, and then only half-heartedly study that towards which they apply it. One example of intellectual sloppiness can be found throughout the first essay in the collection, Claudia Herbst's essay on Lara Croft. Throughout she makes one generalization after another about the actual mental or psychological states of gamers that could only actually be validated by statistical analyses of actual gamers. A large number of her "proofs" are actually anecdotes from postings on boards on the Internet. A good example can be found in this passage: Writing of Lara she says, "Men may interpret her toughness and her tiny waist as sexy. Many women find her figure disturbing and respond negatively to the nature-defying design of her body. Perhaps what women are responding to . . . " (p. 35). These are incredibly loose hinges upon which to build an argument. "Men may." Do they are do they not? And where is the polling data that indicates which. "Many women find . . . " Again, how many women, and where is the polling data. Two very dubious suppositions, but then after constructing these straw men and women she goes on to speculate "Perhaps what women are responding to . . . " She hasn't established any real women do so respond, let alone that women in general do. Yet the entire essay is built up on weak links such as that.
Not all the essays are bad. Though I question whether Sherrie Inness has done a good job as an editor, her introduction and her essay are both good. Jeffrey Brown's essay on BARB WIRE was interesting, though he hasn't made me want to see it. Charlene Tung's essay on LA FEMME NIKITA did, however, make me want to give that series a shot. So also with David Greven's essay on WITCHBLADE (currently unavailable on DVD), though I am suspicious of his depiction of the lead as a lesbian hero (it doesn't quite pass the smell test, though perhaps I am wrong). Dawn Henecken's essay on Chyna might be OK. I just have less than no interest in either Chyna or the world of fake wrestling, so it was a tough essay for me to get through. Marilyn Yaquinto's essay on women in gangster films was fun.
All in all, however, I cannot recommend the collection. Apart from Renny Christopher's very fine essay, I don't think there is much that one interested in the subject can't live without.
The challenge to patriarchal power.......2006-02-16
"Action Chicks" by Sherrie A. Inness (editor) is an outstanding collection of essays about depictions of tough women in popular culture. The ten contributors are drawn from the ranks of academia and write with considerable skill, originality and insight. The consistently high-quality analyses succeed in helping the reader gain a greater understanding of the myriad ways by which strong women are represented and evaluated in the media within the context of real-world social change. The articles are presented in a sophisticated yet entertaining manner, making for superb reading for anyone interested in an intelligent examination of pop culture and gender.
Ms. Inness' Introduction, "New Images of Tough Women" discusses how strong women have always existed within American culture but have proliferated in recent years in tandem with second-wave feminism and greater career opportunities for women. The action heroine's muscular body signifies the real-life challenge posed to patriarchal power structures; perhaps not surprisingly, female aggressiveness has subsequently been perceived by audiences as both a desirable and threatening development. For these reasons, Ms. Inness contends that the representation of the action heroine as a leading cultural symbol marks her as a subject who is worthy of serious study and reflection.
The book is divided into two sections.
Part I is about the "Changing Images of the Female Action Hero". Claudia Herbst's "Lara's Lethal and Loaded Mission" discusses the eroticized violence embodied by Lara Croft and the video game 'Tomb Raider' to contend that her obedience to male fantasy and control ultimately cannot serve to empower women. Jeffrey A. Brown's "The Bad Girls of Action Film and Comic Books" explores depictions of gender role trangressions in well-known movies such as "G.I. Jane". Ms. Inness' "Tough Female Action Figues in the Toy Store" discovers that toymakers' relatively conservative representations of strong women as expressed through female action figures has lagged behind the progress women have made in the real world. Charlene Tung's "Gender, Race and Sexuality in 'La Femme Nikita'" finds that while Nikita rebuts notions of female passivity and asserts her own independence, Nikita's "Westernized and white heteronormative superiority" serves to reinforce the TV show's restrictive notion of white female privilege and Western imperialism. David Greven's "Defiant Women, Decadent Men, Objects of Power and 'Witchblade'" discusses how Sarah's constrained aggression and opposition to homosexual and lesbian power ironically positions her as a Terminator-like figure in service to patriarchy. Sara Crosby's "Female Heroes Snapped into Sacrificial Heroines" suggests that strong female characters such as Xena the Warrior Princess have traditionally been self-actualized and then destroyed by their media creators in order to reclaim the liberatory political powers that otherwise might threaten the prevailing social order.
Part II is on the topic of "New Images of Toughness". Dawn Heinecken's "Gender, Transgression and the World Wrestling Federation's Chyna" is a fascinating study of how Chyna's muscularity heightened anxieties about homoeroticism and male privilege in the highly sexualized culture of the WWF. Marilyn Yaquinto's "Mamas, Molls and Mob Wives" surveys the gangster film genre and demonstrates how contemporary TV shows such as 'The Sopranos' have turned assumptions about the genre around by depicting women who in many ways are stronger than their male counterparts. Sharon Ross' "Female Friendship and Heroism in 'Xena' and 'Buffy'" contrasts the heroine's embrace of empathy and community with the traditional loner male hero to explain why Xena and Buffy can provide positive examples to young women. Renny Christopher's "'Farscape's' Inverted Sexual Dynamics" finds that the post-patriarchal world depicted in the TV show 'Farscape' suggests a possible "queer" universe wherein heterosexual and homosexual dynamics might mix freely to create a new and potentially liberatory world.
I highly recommend this exceptionally fun, provocative and enlightening book to everyone.
Book Description
The Question of Women in Chinese Feminism is a history of thinking about the subject of women in twentieth-century China. Tani E. Barlow illustrates the theories and conceptual categories that Enlightenment Chinese intellectuals have developed to describe the collectivity of women. Demonstrating how generations of these theorists have engaged with international debates over eugenics, gender, sexuality, and the psyche, Barlow argues that as an Enlightenment project, feminist debate in China is at once Chinese and international. She reads social theory, psychoanalytic thought, literary criticism, ethics, and revolutionary political ideologies to illustrate the range and scope of Chinese feminist theory’s preoccupation with the problem of gender inequality. She reveals how, throughout the cataclysms of colonial modernity, revolutionary modernization, and market socialism, prominent Chinese feminists have gathered up the remainders of the past and formed them into social and ethical arguments, categories, and political positions, ceaselessly reshaping progressive Enlightenment sexual liberation theory.
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Shakespeare, Feminism and Gender (New Casebooks)
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The Matter of Difference: Materialist Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare
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Hamlet (Signet Classics)
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Book Description
Over the last quarter-century, feminist criticism of Shakespeare has greatly expanded and enriched the range of interpretations of the Shakespearean texts, their original historical location, and subsequent reinterpretation. Characteristically, it weaves between past and present, driven by a commitment to both intervene in contemporary cultural politics and to recover a fuller sense of the sexual politics of the literary heritage. Collecting together essays that offer detailed accounts of particular plays with others that take a broader overview of the field, this New Casebook showcases the range of critical strategies used by feminist criticism, and illustrates how vital attention to the politics of gender and sexuality is to a full understanding and appreciation of Shakespearean drama.
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Written for readers with little knowledge of the subject, Sexual/Textual Politics nevertheless makes its own intervention into key debates, arguing provocatively for a commitedly political and theoretical criticism as against merely textual or apolitical approaches.
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- The Lost Coin: Finding true worth...
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The Lost Coin: Parables of Women, Work and Wisdom (Biblical Seminar 86)
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ASIN: 1841273228 |
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The Lost Coin: Finding true worth..........2003-05-24
As Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenze says the foreword to `The Lost Coin: Parables of Women, Work and Wisdom' begins, `Thirty years ago nobody had ever heard or dreamt of feminist biblical studies. Today the articles and books offering ever more sophisticated feminist biblical interpretations abound.' This book is part of that growing tradition, and represents the first such work to look specifically at parables through this particular lens. This is somewhat surprising, given the importance of parables in the teaching of Jesus. However, the traditional view of parables finds that most of the actors and characters in the parables are men. This book will challenge the reader's view.
The title itself, `The Lost Coin' signifies the search for the lost in the parables themselves. Where are women? Where are women's voices and women's concerns? As Beavis states in her introductory chapter, `Even a parable that seems solely occupied with the relations between men may imply female characters.' Looking at the peripheral characters and how they might be affected (the mother of the prodigal son is held up as an example) gives new insight in interpretation and analysis of the parable.
There are five primary sections to the book. The first section looks at parables with easily identifiable and prominent female characters. The parables of the woman searching for the lost coin, the persistent widow, and the wise and foolish virgins are prominently featured (the persistent widow is represented in three different essays each exploring different aspects). The section concludes with an essay recasting the parable of the prodigal son, looking at it from a perspective of possible family abuse - what would make the son want to run away? Why do we assume the failing on the part of the son?
The second section deals with parables of women's work. Looking at sociological and historical data outside the bible to illustrate `typical' patterns of women's work, and aspects of women's labouring that in some regards has not changed through the ages (Schottroff presents evidence that `female labourers earned half as much as men in antiquity'; Wire and Hearon's look at women as cooks and bakers continues a familiar pattern through much of the world today).
The third section looks at particularly Johannine images of the bride and the mother/birthgiver. These images from John's gospel are often overlooked given the difference between the synoptic gospels and their narrative styles and the content and style of John. The parables are in some ways given short shrift in John, but as Rushton states, `Although "John" may well have done a particular disservice in obscuring this tradition, by a stroke of brilliance the shapers of the text recorded its core in the tope of a metaphor.' The strand of images we have in John as mother and bride are obscured and open to interpretation on several levels, but certainly allow for new feminist ideas to illuminate the text.
The fourth section looks at parables of wisdom/Sophia. The idea of wisdom being a feminine image is prominent in the Hebrew scriptures, and carries over into much of Jesus' own speech. Jesus personifies Jerusalem and Wisdom as feminine, mothering figures who weep for and protect their children; however, Wisdom is also vindicated by her children. Reid likens this to the current climate in the church.
`Wisdom's female children in the church today continue to experience the frustration of having been schooled in her Word and in her ways, yet find resistance, rejection, and even vilification when they attempt to proclaim the Word or preside at the Eucharistic table. This gospel parable can offer hope to women today with its assurance of vindication for all of Wisdom's children.'
The fifth and final section is itself a new parable, written by Christin Lore Weber. It is more in the manner of a short story than a parable (most parables being relatively short). It is a mythic parable, and one that will perhaps not resonate well with those looking for a more traditional message. This parable is offered without commentary - Jesus frequently gave commentary to the disciples, but not to the crowds. This parable is meant for the crowds.
Overall, `The Lost Coin' offers a fascinating look at parables. Much material for reflection and for preaching in new and refreshing ways can be gathered from the pages of this text. The recovery of lost or obscured images and voices is a primary task for the authors; the presentation not only of new interpretations but also of new questions to be asked is also important here. What difference will this make? That is not an easy question; indeed, it is a question to be asked in each community separately.
Many of the essays introduce principles of exegesis and historical analysis, but some familiarity with hermeneutic approaches and biblical studies is assumed. However, this is not a text meant solely for an academic audience. It would be very useful for church-based bible studies and small community groups who wish to look at parables in a new way.
I would like to turn for a moment at the conclusion to one particular chapter, `Women's Work and the Realm of God', by Holly Hearon and Antoinette Clark Wire (because Holly Hearon is a friend of mine, I shall give pride of place to highlighting her chapter). This chapter looks at women's work, particularly baking and spinning, as these are traditional occupations for women in ancient times as well as in most of the world today. Hearon and Wire examine the issues following multiple strategies that look at historical, textual, linguistic, ideological, and current readership concerns. Finally, the authors invite the readers to take these things into consideration and `revision ourselves differently: not as exploited workers in the patriarchal household, but as the hands of God who promises a new economy for the household of God.'
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