Statement:  Feminist Theology rose strongly amid the second wave of feminism in the 1960s and blossomed in the 1970s and 80s.  The academic institutionalization of women’s studies (on the one hand) and postmodern theory (on the other) catalyzed a crisis within feminist theology in the 1990s.  This course seeks to give a sense of feminist theology’s historical trajectory, its passion and contradictions, and its effects on both religious institutions and other feminist movement in this culture.  I teach the course from the standpoint of a feminist cultural critic, not a theologian (though I have been trained as both). I was raised Christian and, along with the women in the Mudflower collective, I consider myself somewhat of a “postchristian Christian.”  My hope is that this course will challenge you not only to take seriously the religious dimensions of feminist movement, but also to articulate and critically analyze your own religious sensibilities and stories.
 
 

Requirements:

1. Feminist theology refuses to separate the form of education from its content.  Thus, as stories and reflection and critique and struggle are all vital to the content of this course, so are they vital to its form.  I expect you to reflect and critique and struggle, and to share as many stories as you feel compelled to share.  I am experimenting with a new on-line teaching tool called web-board, on which I shall post questions about the readings and require that you respond both to the questions and to at least one of your classmates’s responses.  The logistics of this arrangement mandate that you not leave your reading and reflection to the few moments directly before class!  My intention is that these questions and your responses will form a first layer of reflection on the material and that class discussion can then be more focused and more critical right from the start.  I shall assess 50% of your grade based on your contributions to the class and the web board, which I expect to be timely, serious, respectful and thoughtful.

2. The remaining 50% of your grade shall be divided equally (25% each) on a midterm and final project.  I can assuredly assign a straight essay topic, if the class wishes.  Or I can let you each decide—in consultation with me—what kind of paper or project would best exhibit your knowledge and critical application of the materials we have covered.  It is imperative to me that you know that learning—education—is a process that fully involves and has effects upon your whole life, a view directly counter to our culture’s stress on standardized testing of accumulated facts and logical processes.  I am open to any way in which you wish to tackle the material of this course, again, so long as that way is timely, serious, respectful and thoughtful.  The midterm is due Wednesday, October 11 (unless you observe Yom Kippur, in which case see me by October 1) and the final is due on the date scheduled for the final exam in this class.