Synopses & Reviews
Faith and Feminism brings together the world's leading voices of feminist theologians, biblical scholars, and ethicists. With many essays originally compiled as part of the annual Phyllis Trible Lecture series, and others completely new, this volume demonstrates the breadth of feminist interpretation on many contemporary topics, including the Bible; Judeo-Christian and Islamic perspectives; gender, embodiment, and sexuality; race; and ecology. Contributions are from a truly international group of writers, both established scholars and new voices. Readers will explore the impact of feminism on faith and faith on feminism, particularly on issues regarding religion, biblical interpretation, and social engagement across the world.
Review
"This volume, edited by two scholars known for their close reading and graceful writing about religious texts, comes at an important time: when people of faith committed to the full humanity of all wo/men, but separated both by different religious traditions and by the distance between our countries and continents, need resources for igniting conversations with each other. Though it includes important work by senior scholars in Christian feminist and womanist theological circles, the contributions of the emerging scholars in these pages will do at least as much to move these conversations forward. Feminists who situate themselves within Christian communities will do well to study long and hard the contributions from Muslim feminist scholars featured here. North American readers will learn much from those who offer their contributions from the other continents. Let the conversations, contentions and disclosure go forward."
—Shelly Matthews, Professor of New Testament, Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University
Review
"This book offers a stunning new horizon for insights, through feminist lenses, into the meanings of religious faith and the liberating appeal of genuine moral imperatives. Scholarly and practical doors are opened by the interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, ecumenical, and interfaith conversations that are advanced by these essays. The volume as a whole is elegant and reader-friendly. It will transform the minds and hearts of those, both women and men, who enter into its riches."
—Margaret A. Farley, Gilbert L. Stark Professor Emerita of Christian Ethics, Yale University Divinity School
Synopsis
Faith and Feminism brings together leading voices in biblical studies, inter-religious encounters, theology and ethics. Originally delivered as part of the Phyllis Trible Lecture Series at Wake Forest University School of Divinity (2003-2013), these essays demonstrate the breadth of feminist interpretation on compelling topics: interpretation of sacred texts; Judeo-Christian and Islamic perspectives; gender and sexuality; race and cultural identity; and ecology and religion. An international group of writers, both established scholars and new voices, contribute. Readers can explore the impact of feminisms on faiths and faiths on feminisms.
About the Author
Phyllis Trible is Baldwin Professor Emerita of Sacred Literature at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. The author of influential works such as
God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality and
Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives, Trible specializes in literary and rhetorical analysis of biblical texts from a feminist perspective.
B. Diane Lipsett is Assistant Professor of Religion at Salem College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Specializing in literary analysis of early Christian texts, Lipsett is the author of Desiring Conversion: Hermas, Thecla, Aseneth.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Testimonies in TonguesB. Diane Lipsett and Phyllis Trible
PART ONE: Biblical Studies
Chapter 2 The Dilemma of Dominion
Phyllis Trible
Chapter 3 From Pawn to Selfhood: The Character Leah
Wilma Ann Bailey
Chapter 4 Folklore, Feminism, and the Ambiguity of Power
Susan Niditch
Chapter 5 The Journey of a Girl Who Talks Back: Mark's Syropheonician Woman
Hisako Kinukawa
Chapter 6 Sacraments of Friendship: Embodied Love in the Gospel of John
Gail R. O'Day
PART TWO Inter-religious Ventures
Chapter 7 Learning in the Presence of the Other: Feminisms and the Interreligious Encounter
Mary C. Boys
Chapter 8 Speaking from Behind the Veil: Does Islamic Feminism Exist?
Hibba Abugideiri
Chapter 9 The Emergence of Muslim American Feminism
Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad
Chapter 10 Sarah and Hagar: A Feminist European Perspective on Actual Controversies
Ulrike Bechmann
Chapter 11 The Women of Jericho: Dramatization as Feminist Hermeneutics
Ulrike Bechmann
PART THREE Theology and Ethics
Chapter 12 Ecological Theology in Women's Voices
Elizabeth A. Johnson
Chapter 13 Daily Life Challenges as the Criterion for Biblical and Feminist Theological Hermeneutics
Ivone Gebara
Chapter 14 Do You Understand What You Are Reading? African Women's Reading of the Bible and the Ethos of Contemporary Christianity in Africa
Mercy Amba Oduyoye
Chapter 15 With Running Mouth and Hands on Hips: Saphire and the Moral Imagination
Emilie M. Townes
Chapter 16 Why Do Men Need the Goddess? Male Creation of Female Religious Symbols
Rosemary Radford Ruether
Selected Bibliography