You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Offers a compelling look at how Orthodox Jewish LGBT persons in Israel became more accepted in their communities. Until fairly recently, Orthodox people in Israel could not imagine embracing their LGBT sexual or gender identity and staying within the Orthodox fold. But within the span of about a decade and a half, Orthodox LGBT people have forged social circles and communities and become much more visible. This has been a remarkable shift in a relatively short time span. Queer Judaism offers the compelling story of how Jewish LGBT persons in Israel created an effective social movement. Drawing on more than 120 interviews, Orit Avishai illustrates how LGBT Jews accomplished this radical chang...
Provides timely comparative analysis from internationally known contributors.
Evangelical pastor, talk-show host, politician. Pentecostal Preacher Woman explores the life of the Reverend Bernice Gerard (1923–2008), one of the most influential spiritual figures of twentieth-century British Columbia, whose complicated blend of social conservatism and social compassion has lessons for our polarized times. Coming out of a difficult childhood, Gerard was attracted to Pentecostalism’s emphasis on direct personal experience of God and the use of spiritual gifts, and she became a widely travelled international evangelist. As a pastor, radio personality, and alderman, she was a compelling communicator for the Christian right and an ardent critic of liberal social mores, yet she supported social justice for refugees, Indigenous people, and Vancouver’s homeless population. She remained rooted in patriarchal religious institutions but practised a kind of feminism and shared her life with a female partner. Based on Reverend Gerard’s personal archives and writings, Pentecostal Preacher Woman traces the complex evolution of a conservative woman’s ideas about faith and society.
Who are Haredim? And why are they the source of both increasing attention and continuing misunderstanding? New Trends in the Study of Haredi Culture and Society draws on the innovative research of leading scholars from a variety of disciplines—including history, religious studies, demography, linguistics, and geography—to trace the growing prominence of Haredi (often called ultra-Orthodox) Jews in Jewish life. Haredi Jews are committed to preserving a measure of segregation from the rest of society consistent with the guiding principles of their forebears; yet increasingly, they are appearing more visibly and assertively in public spaces. Demographic analysis suggests that they will constitute a much larger share—nearly one-quarter—of the world Jewish population over the next twenty years. By examining the evolution of political, cultural, and social trends in Haredi communities across the globe, this interdisciplinary and transnational volume sheds important light both on Haredi communities and on the societies of which they are part.
This book explores female faith practices, drawing on qualitative research to consider how women navigate and create spiritual and religious practices. The chapters cover Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Buddhist contexts as well as newer spiritual movements. The contributors examine prayer and ritual practices and familial, educational and ritual spaces and relationships in a variety of cultural settings. The volume reflects on the ways in which women subvert traditional or patriarchal religious practices and spaces, both problematising and expanding existing notions of ‘religious practice’. It also touches on research itself as a form of spiritual and academic practice, considering ways in which women challenge androcentric modes of research as well as ways in which the subject of research – in this case, female faith – may challenge the researcher’s convictions and practice. Blending case studies with empirical research, this book will be an outstanding resource to theologians and researchers interested in Practical Theology, Gender Studies, Sociology of Religion and Anthropology.
None
In the Netherlands, girls and young women are increasingly active in women-only kickboxing. The general assumption, in the Netherlands and in western Europe more broadly, is that women’s sport is a form of secular, feminist empowerment. Muslim women’s participation would then exemplify the incongruence of Islam with the modern, secular nation-state. Punching Back provides a detailed ethnographic study that contests this view by showing that young Muslim women who kickbox establish agentive selves by playing with gender norms, challenging expectations, and living out their religious subjectivities.
On both Mediterranean shores, women’s agency is articulated by new social and legal actors that face the religious factor both as an asset and as a brake. This book explores how female agency is defined and takes place in the region. The collection brings together contributions of both theoretical and thematic nature mapping various experiences on the public role of women in the Mediterranean context. In particular, the book relates the two sides, observing affinities and differences in the affirmation of women’s agency. This synoptic approach avoids essentialist contraposition and dialectic between different cultural, religious and political universes and emphasizes the role of a common...
In most mainstream traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism, women have for centuries largely been excluded from positions of religious and ritual leadership. However, as this volume shows, in an increasing number of late-20th-century and early-21st-century contexts, women can and do undergo monastic and priestly education; they can receive ordination/initiation as Buddhist nuns or Hindu priestesses; and they are accepted as religious and political leaders. Even though these processes still take place largely outside or at the margins of traditional religious institutions, it is clear that women are actually establishing new religious trends and currents. They are attracting followers, and they a...