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RELS 254
Women and Religion


Assistant
Professor
of New
Testament

Department
of Religious
Studies


Theological Hall
Kingston, ON
Canada, K7L 3N6

(613) 533-6000
x78066

fax: (613) 533-6879

rsa@post.queensu.ca

http://
post.queensu.ca/~rsa

Course Description


This is an introductory course that addresses issues concerning women's status and roles in certain religious traditions. Those who have raise questions about all social and cultural institutions from a feminist point of view include questions about religious traditions, questions such as
  • What roles have women played in religious traditions?
  • Has religion contributed to women's liberation, to women's subordination, or to both?
  • How have women been understood and portrayed in various religious traditions?
  • What are women saying about women's experience in these traditions?
  • How do the religious traditions look from a feminist perspective?
In response to such feminist questions this course will ask what difference it makes if one takes women seriously into account when one looks at religious traditions. The course looks at the ways several of the world's religious traditions have viewed and portrayed women. It also considers the roles that women have historically taken and presently take in these traditions. The impact that contemporary feminism has had on these traditions and vice-versa is another central theme of the course. Part of the course is given over to the exploration of some of the new religious options that women have chosen if they decide that existing traditions not able to break free of their patriarchal moorings.

The course objectives are

  • to introduce questions about the status and roles of women in Judaism, Christianity, and, briefly, several other major religious traditions

  • to introduce some of the questions raised in feminist analysis, particulary in feminist analysis of religion

  • to introduce some of the religious choices made by women who opt out of traditional religion

  • to instill skills for entering into critical dialogue around women and religion.

Fall-Winter 2001-2002

Correspondence Course

Please contact Continuing & Distance Studies