Department of Religious Studies

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FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCE
DEPARTMENT OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES

25 April 1997
PROFS. ELLEN GOLDBERG and WILLIAM CLOSSON JAMES

1. This examination is three hours in length and counts 40% towards your final mark in the course.
2. Write FOUR answers in essay form for the questions of your choice (i.e., write an essay for one of the two questions in each of Parts A, B, C, and D). Each essay is worth ten marks.
3. Take care not to overlap your essays. That is, do not repeat the authors chosen in Part A for your answer to Part B; nor the authors chosen for Part C in Part D.
4. Aim at giving more or less equal attention to all of the major texts on the Reading List for the course.
5. Please begin a new answer booklet with Part C (so that the instructors can separate Parts A & B from Parts C & D for marking).

|Part A|Part B|Part C|Part D|

Answer Question 1. or 2. for 10 marks.

1. The rise of feminist consciousness in the 1960's finds an expression, for example, in the writings of the feminist theologians in Womanspirit Rising. With access to higher education and academic professions, women began to take up the cause of challenging the status quo and male dominance in the field of religion. However, two different but related camps, as it were, developed, i.e., the reformers and the revolutionaries. Choose three reform writers from Womanspirit Rising and outline in detail the issues they raise and their platforms for reform. Also, discuss the agendas of three reform eco-theologians who challenge the status quo in Christian environmental ethics. Explain why the writers and movements you have chosen are indeed reform and not revolutionary.

2. Women working and practising in the area of religious studies have contested interpretations of sacred text and offered new interpretations. They have challenged notions of orthodoxy, and what constitutes both legitimate texts and methods of religious practice. Discuss three authors of significance from Womanspirit Rising who indeed challenge orthodox notions of religion, propose new readings, interpretations, rituals, and have aspired to promote women’s visibility within various traditions. This re-visioning of religion and its relationship to the environment is also present in ecotheology. Provide details from at least three ecotheologians whose writings resonate with this spirit of reform.

To the beginning of the exam

;Answer Question 1. or 2. for 10 marks.

1. The theme of ‘experience’ has gained recognition in feminist theory in recent years. It is also evident that ‘experience’ is a vital component in environmental ethics. One example of ‘experience’ is the spiritual journey. Discuss the salient characteristics of the spiritual journey as outlined in Womanspirit Rising and Ecology and Religion, and compare and contrast its significance to these specific areas of thought as well as its application.

2. Gender ideologies refer to how the female and male, as different sexes of the human species, are understood within their cultures. This is often mapped out, beginning with the biological, which shows men and women to be different, and ends with the philosophical, which prescribes how this difference culturally means the male is superior to the female. Using Sherry Ortner’s essay as a theoretical framework, show how various cultures and religions feminize nature and, in turn, lay the blueprints for the oppression of women and our environment. What are some alternatives to this environmental oppression as outlined by cultures and religions that stress an ethic of mutuality and reciprocity

To the beginning of the exam

Answer Question 1. or 2. for 10 marks.

1. In response to a question during her visit to class on 3 October 1996 Joy Kogawa stated: "The power that we vested in a God ‘out there’ we can forget about, in a way. Because we can see the power of God’s love ‘here.’" Referring to Obasan and/or Night outline how the belief in an all-powerful God beyond the earth gets relocated to an experience of love found in the human condition. Then, go on to suggest how this statement might also apply either to Sharon Butala’s The Perfection of the Morning or to Douglas Coupland’s Life After God.

2. Drawing upon Elie Wiesel, Joy Kogawa, and some of the authors in Holocaust: Religious & Philosophical Implications, show how they attempt in their own ways to remain faithful to and continue within the religious traditions they have inherited in spite of the difficulties and challenges of the modern world.

To the beginning of the exam

Answer Question 1. or 2. for 10 marks.

1. Paul Tillich has said: "We are aware of the power of being through the experience of the shock of non-being." Illustrate how absence or the void or a "dark night of the soul" leads to the discovery of meaning in two or three of the following: Elie Wiesel; Joy Kogawa; some of the authors in Holocaust: Religious & Philosophical Implications; Sharon Butala; Douglas Coupland.

2. Referring to the work of Sharon Butala and Douglas Coupland illustrate some of the defining characteristics of contemporary spirituality in the 1990s. How do these traits differ from those typical of the major western religious traditions?

To the beginning of the exam