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What was the nature of ritual in ancient Yahwism? Although biblical sources provide some information about various types of cultic activity, we have thus far lacked any extra-biblical ritual texts from Yahwistic circles prior to Greco–Roman times. This article presents such a text—one that has been hiding in plain sight for almost a century on a small ostracon found on the island of Elephantine. It has variously been interpreted as dealing with instructions regarding a tunic left at the "house of Yhw"—the temple to Yhw(h) that flourished on the island from the middle of the sixth to the end of the fourth century BCE. While there is little debate regarding the epigraphic reading of this text, it has hitherto failed to be correctly interpreted. I present an entirely new reading of this important document, revealing it to be written in poetic form and to match the characteristics of a "prayer for justice" curse ritual. It is, in fact, the oldest known example of this genre; its only known specimen in Aramaic, its unique witness in a Yahwistic context, and the sole record of any ritual performance at a temple to Yhw(h). Significantly, it is administered by a priestess. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What was the nature of ritual in ancient Yahwism? Although biblical sources provide some information about various types of cultic activity, we have thus far lacked any extra-biblical ritual texts from Yahwistic circles prior to Greco–Roman times. This article presents such a text—one that has been hiding in plain sight for almost a century on a small ostracon found on the island of Elephantine. It has variously been interpreted as dealing with instructions regarding a tunic left at the “house of Yhw”—the temple to Yhw(h) that flourished on the island from the middle of the sixth to the end of the fourth century BCE. While there is little debate regarding the epigraphic reading of this text, it has hitherto failed to be correctly interpreted. I present an entirely new reading of this important document, revealing it to be written in poetic form and to match the characteristics of a “prayer for justice” curse ritual. It is, in fact, the oldest known example of this genre; its only known specimen in Aramaic, its unique witness in a Yahwistic context, and the sole record of any ritual performance at a temple to Yhw(h). Significantly, it is administered by a priestess.

This paper will examine the different roles of Ancient Egyptian Women in the archaeological and textual evidence, including an introduction of the roles that family, burial, and religion played in the lives of women during the Pharaonic period of Egypt's history. After offering a brief examination of these facets of female lives, the paper will analyze the lives of three exceptional women - Hatshepsut, Nefertiti, and Tiye - in order to show how they managed to obtain power during periods of intense social pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Very early in the life of the Church, as early as New Testament times, some Christian women chose to forego marriage and embrace lifelong virginity for the love of Christ. By the fourth century, a solemn liturgical rite of consecration of virgins was in use. These consecrated virgins continued living in their family homes, that is, "in the world." With the rise of cenobitic monasticism, more women chose to dedicate themselves to Christ through this communal form of life. Over time, the rite of consecration of virgins became available only to nuns. While the ordo virginum for women living in the world (in saeculo) was revived in 1970 with the revised rite of consecration, little guidance was provided for bishops on how to establish and oversee this vocation within their dioceses. The only universal law addressing consecrated virginity was the brief praenotanda to the 1970 Ordo consecrationis virginum and a single canon in the 1983 Code of Canon Law. Bishops petitioned the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life to issue an instruction on the consecration of virgins in saeculo. The Congregation responded in 2018 with the instruction Ecclesiae sponsae imago. This article reviews the law regarding consecration of virgins as found in canon 604 and the praenotanda to the rite and then focuses on the main points of the instruction, beginning with the introduction and proceeding through each of its three sections. The summary of each section is followed by the author's own canonical commentary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

En las Constituciones de la Compañía de Jesús se estableció que no se podrían incorporar mujeres a su comunidad. Sin embargo, en todo el mundo se crearon congregaciones femeninas independientes que siguieron las reglas jesuitas. Aquí se dan algunos ejemplos para alcanzar el objetivo del artículo, que es indagar sobre las beatas que fueron destacadas en la documentación de los jesuitas de la provincia del Paraguay; se admiten las dificultades que implica no contar con otras fuentes. De esta manera se dan a conocer algunas mujeres prácticamente desconocidas en la historiografía religiosa y, a su vez, el interés en sus ámbitos, los beaterios, que permiten contribuir al conocimiento del modo de vida espiritual que llevaban. Solo se mencionó uno de éstos en los inventarios de las temporalidades de toda la provincia, por lo que se pretende indagar sobre el origen, la descripción y el destino del edificio.

This article is one of gratitude to three scholars--Grace Jantzen, Hannah Arendt and Judith Butler--who encouraged my feminist leanings. Jantzen's reading of Arendt's The Human Condition (1959) prompted her move from a literal to a figurative form of the term 'natality'. Arendt's emphasis on human suffering also attracted Jantzen. Instead of rejecting Arendt's 'natality' as a literal mode of maternity, Jantzen affirmed Arendt's position, where, together with constructive work, 'natality' can initiate dynamic change. Such a new beginning, inherent in birth, is recognized in the world only because newcomers possess a capacity of beginning, of something new, i.e., of action. 'It initiates the dynamic element of action, and thus natality, which is inherent in all human activity' (Arendt 1959: 10-11). Judith Butler's publications have provided provocative challenges since Gender Trouble (1990). Recently, however, Butler has invoked ethical responsibility in an era of 'senseless death'. She recommends a new bodily ontology which may initiate another dynamic change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study departed from the idea that all people, including those hardest hit by adversity, have strengths and resiliencies. It posed the question on how a particularly vulnerable group, Central American migrant women in irregular transit through Mexico, used their strengths and resilience to reach the border with the USA. Past research has failed to address the issue of strengths and resilience in Central American migrant women, instead, much attention has been placed on the risks and vulnerabilities of this group. This research started from the strengths perspective and resilience theories to address the issue of skills and abilities of migrant women in transit through Mexico. Specifically, it was about discovering the women's strengths, knowing how they used them to face and overcome the adversities of the journey and how they made sense of them. For this purpose, 10 narrative interviews were conducted in the Mexican border city of Tijuana, and microethnographic work was done with these women. The results of this research indicated that these migrant women are possessors of internal and external strengths; the first is related to their religious beliefs, courage, endurance and goal setting and the second with the support received from people, institutions, and their families. It was concluded that thanks to the combination of all these strengths, these women were able to successfully reach the border with the USA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of female conversion to Islam in pre-modern times has received insufficient attention in modern scholarship. This is mostly the result of the methodological problem that shrouds it. One can say with high measures of certainty that in contrast to their male counterparts, the treatment of female converts to Islam in early Islamic sources is almost always in relation to a male figure. It is the premise of the present contribution that female choices to embrace the Islamic creed, although restricted by male authority, deserve greater attention. The present discussion explores female agency in moments of conversion to Islam by focusing on the biographies of three female figures from the time of the Prophet. Read in tandem with additional literary sources, it attempts to locate the medieval (i.e. eighth–thirteenth centuries) context of stories that go back to the very early phases of the Umma – the Muslim Community of Believers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Charisma' can be a catch-all term that obfuscates more than it reveals. What it does reveal often says more about the historical and cultural context in which 'charisma' was deployed than about its subject. In this introduction we trace the concept's contextual shifts across its intersections with gender, religion and power. We explore the different ways in which women in the religious sphere have been considered charismatic, thereby addressing Max Weber's definition of 'charisma' as well as its subsequent reinventions in the social sciences and the humanities. Particular focus goes to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when the mediatization of 'charisma' created new opportunities and risks for women in religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article heeds previous calls for revitalized feminist accounts of gender and religion. Having identified post-secular female pilgrimages as practices that actuate a 'third space', we claim that it is a space that cannot be adequately theorized from within secular feminist perspectives and attendant conceptions of subjectivity, agency and autonomy. Nor do perspectives from religious studies and its conceptions of piety as expressions of subjectivity, agency and autonomy do justice to the spatialities and subjectivities of post-secular female pilgrims. The article aligns itself with the budding field of critical feminist studies of post-secularism. We argue that, in general, both the protagonists and the detractors of post-secularism fail to recognize feminist theorizations of religion, the post-secular debate in feminist studies, and the place and role of women in the emergence of the post-secular. Whence, our neologism post-sexularism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the necessity for theological education and theological participation for women in the Caribbean to be formally trained to participate in the restructuring and developing of any institutional programmes and training regarding theological education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The woman at the well argued theology with Jesus, and he listened to her and engaged her in conversation. Theological education today must make spaces for the voices of the marginalized to be heard and prepare church leaders to listen respectfully to people from the margins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interpreters generally acknowledge that the syntax of 1 Tim 3:1-13 points to the presence of women διάκονοι. Many of these interpreters, however, are tentative or deny the presence of women διάκονοι because of their assumptions about gendered social norms of the period. I argue that early readers of 1 Timothy would understand the ideals represented in the qualifications for διάκονοι as applying to women as well as to men. I assess social norms and practices of the period, especially in and around Ephesus, including the gendered virtues used to honor high-status women of the time. I conclude that the women introduced in 3:11 would likely have been understood as women holding the same titles as the male διάκονοι, just as women held many of the same civic and religious titles as their male peers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a single detailed case study of communal life at a small private Buddhist nunnery governed by strict rules and inhabited by religiously active nuns. The first half of this article focuses on why the nunnery was constructed, how it was funded, where it was built, its architectural design, and its residents. The second half examines the daily ritual activities of the nuns, their education, disciplinary procedures, fundraising, and community relations. In bringing to life how the culture of monastic discipline shaped the daily rhythms of these nuns' lives, this article further sheds light not only on monastic culture in Hangzhou at the end of the Ming, but also demonstrates the contrast between that culture and other Buddhist and contemporary religious competitors in the surrounding religious landscape. In so doing, this article shifts our attention from the study of hagiography to the broader context of female monastic culture exhibited in the genres of communal rules (guiyue) and vinaya texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women's access to positions of leadership in religions is a highly contested issue in Western societies, both inside religions themselves and in societal discussions of religion. Reliable data on actual female leadership are, however, scarce, especially in European countries and regarding minority religions. This article describes and explains statistically the normative openness of congregations to female leadership as well as the actual existence, position, and financial remuneration of female leaders across the whole range of religious traditions in Switzerland. The study is based on data from the representative National Congregations Study of 2008/2009. Our results show that, despite considerable normative openness, female spiritual and administrative leadership remains scarce in most religious traditions. The highest percentage of female spiritual leaders can be found in the milieu of alternative spirituality, followed by the Reformed congregations. A generally high percentage of female leadership can be found on administrative boards. It is only leadership positions in certain Christian traditions (Reformed, Catholic, Evangelical-classical) that are normally remunerated for women; many other traditions do not have female leadership or, as in the case of the milieu of alternative spirituality, such leadership positions are not remunerated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the research about the intersection of the political, the epistemological, and the aesthetic in the beautification rituals of Narikuravar women in South India. Topics discussed include information on the author narrating her own particular experience of doing research in community; and how doing fieldwork can change the researcher’s perspective on her own work, opening new doors for understanding gender hierarchies and women’s agency.

One of the most important shifts occurring in the religious landscape is a significant increase in the number of churches that are ordaining and calling women to the ministry. While a tremendous amount of work in communication has studied the differences in speech by male and female speakers, that analysis has not turned to the level of the sermon. Using nearly 900 sermon transcripts collected from pastors of both genders, this paper uses a number of text analysis techniques including natural language processing and sentiment analysis to understand the differences in sermon delivery between the genders. Our findings note that while sermons delivered by males are significantly longer, female speakers are more likely to use first person pronouns and tentative speech than their male counterparts. Overall, our sentiment analysis finds that women are more likely to use positive words; however, sentiment varies dramatically across the entire arc of the sermon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Spiral Staircase, Karen Armstrong's self-narrative, shows the limitations of theological or religious reflections within a specific religious community. Leaving the Sisters of Charity for a tumultuous academic life, historian of religion Karen Armstrong lives a wrenching ontological dislocation that originates in her undiagnosed epilepsy and negative body experiences. Using semiotician Algirdas Greimas's 'Semiotic Square' as an interpretive strategy, the unresolved tensions and contradictions exposed in the deep narrative structure of this non-traditional conversion memoir are resolved by 'compassion' at the manifest level. Armstrong's experiences, both in and out of the convent, will inform her academic study and lead her to compassionate solidarity with the marginalized. Armstrong's memoir reveals various internal and external forces that shape an individual woman's way of being in the world, and that inform her investigation of multiple faith practices and beliefs. In a time of mass refugee migration and 'homelessness', the one woman, the one 'other', matters in how one thinks about the body and about God. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focusses on women and the organisational leadership structures of the Apostolic Faith Mission (AFM) in Zimbabwe. The aim is to identify the roles, practices and contributions of women to the developmental agenda in the church. The AFM in Zimbabwe identifies leadership positions in their various assemblies as pastor (mufundisi), elder (muvhangeri), deacon (muparidzi) and lay worker (mubati). From these ranks, the provincial and national leadership is chosen. The access to and participation of women in these offices and leadership positions will be investigated to ascertain their input to the development of the church and perception of women in the society. The article discusses the mechanisms for the election of leadership in the AFM in Zimbabwe. It analyses leadership succession and leadership roles within the AFM in Zimbabwe from the perspective of gender equity and the involvement (or lack thereof) of women in policy-making, decision-making and the management of the church. Four aspects of the Exploratory Descriptive Normative Action research (EDNA) model were utilised from a practical theology perspective. The article shows that women do not have access to top leadership positions in the AFM in Zimbabwe even though there are no explicit policies that regulate their exclusion. It highlights their contribution to the development of the church despite this exclusion and engages critically with the unspoken assumption that women are not fit to take up the presidium offices and develop the AFM. The article finds that unquestioned patriarchal discourse contributes to women's invisibility, which results in their not being taken into consideration when choices are made to elect people for higher leadership positions in the church. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article examines the intersection of religion, gender and development through an analysis of religious practice and development engagement among women activists in two religio-political aid organizations in contemporary Pakistan. Situated on the margins of the mainstream aid and development field, these women are rarely conceded agents of development. Yet focusing on improving women's position and wellbeing, their activities are similar to those of many other development NGO s. As part of religio-political movements advancing gender complementarity and segregation, women's activism and conceptions of development reflect a particular intersection of religion, gender and class. A close read of women's discourse and practice reveals how women interpret and appropriate Islamic teachings, local cultural practices, and global norms by balancing ideology and pragmatism. In the process of negotiating, upholding and resisting norms and practices, these activists can be seen as active agents of change in their local contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents two case studies of two women who were confronted with a loss of religious authority as they were asked to resign from their lay leading positions after their coming-out as transwomen in the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant Church in the Netherlands. By focusing on these stories, this article provides further insight into queer lives in Europe starting from the intersections of gender, sexuality and religion. The cases show how the position of transwomen is negotiated by both religious structures as well as by transwomen themselves. The analysis focuses particularly on the interactions between the women and their community and church authorities and examines the use of gender/sexuality terminology, the role of the body, and the individualization of faith. This article brings together insights from religious studies, gender, trans* and queer studies, which allows for a multi-layered understanding of trans* and religion in a European context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses a special way in which Asian Catholic women have envisioned their roles in the religiously pluralistic context of Asia. By engaging in dialogue with other religions through service, inter-faith marriage, and collaboration with non-Christian women for women's liberation, these women have used their special gifts in communicating with other women to bring about a change in relationships among people of other religions. In addition, Asian women's theological reflection on interreligious dialogue helps enrich the church's understanding of their role in building a relationship between the church and Asian religions. 本文讨论了亚洲天主教女性所设想的他们在亚洲宗教多元化背景下角色的一种特殊方式。通过与其他宗教透过服务而进行的对话，宗教间通婚和与非基督徒女性为了女性的解放而进行的合作，这些女性用她们的恩赐与其他女性沟通，以改变与其他宗教信奉者之间的关系。此外，亚洲女性对宗教间对话的神学反思，有助于丰富教会对其在建立与亚洲宗教之间关系中的角色的理解。 Este artículo trata sobre una manera especial en que mujeres católicas asiáticas han entendido sus roles dentro del contexto religioso pluralista de Asia. El diálogo con otras religiones se realiza por medio del servicio, del matrimonio interreligioso y la colaboración con mujeres no cristianas a favor de la liberación de las mujeres. Estas mujeres han usado sus dones especiales al comunicarse con otras mujeres para provocar un cambio en las relaciones entre personas de otras religiones. Además, la reflexión teológica de las mujeres asiáticas sobre el diálogo interreligioso ayuda a enriquecer la comprensión de la iglesia sobre su papel en la construcción de un vínculo entre la iglesia y las religiones de Asia. This article is in English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this study is to examine the strategies of politeness used in the Qur'an, the holy book of Muslims, to address and represent women. Women have been represented negatively in many different types of texts through facethreatening acts that sustain masculine power and hegemony. This study attempts to investigate the image of women in the most sacred book of Muslims. Two aspects are examined herein: the representation of women in relation to sensitive issues like sex and marriage, and the forms of address and reference to women. A qualitative approach is used to provide interpretations of the hidden meanings in the selected excerpts, adopting Brown and Levinson's theory of politeness and Leech's maxims of politeness as the guides for the analysis. The analysis has revealed that women all through Qur'an have been addressed and referred to decently and politely. Unlike most of the other topics where bald-on-record strategies are used, the use of off-record strategies and positive and negative face strategies of politeness have been found to be dominant in discussion of issues relevant to women. These strategies have been used to avoid unpleasant communication in spiritual issues, and also to avoid misrepresentation of women, demeaning of their persons, causing any embarrassment, and thereby saving the face of both women and recipients. However, bald-on-record strategies are sometimes used in topics related to legal matters concerning familial and social unity and solidarity. The analysis has demonstrated the means by which language is used in the Glorious Qur'an to courteously address women. Concerning interpersonal maxims, the approbation, modesty, sympathy, tact, and agreement maxims have shown to be evident in addressing and referring to women. This study will contribute to the field of pragmatics and will lead to cross-religious and cross-cultural understanding during a period where Islam and its teachings are being widely questioned and examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through an approach that combines the academic study of religions with motherhood studies, this article examines rarely considered maternal aspects of Demeter, a goddess of the pantheon of ancient Greek religion. We first discuss theoretical input and concepts drawn from maternal theory that are relevant to uncover innovative lines of research on religious representations and practices in polytheistic systems of the past. In this way we also contribute to broader epistemological reflections in the history and study of religions. Then, considering the Homeric Hymn as well as key ritual elements of the Thesmophoria festival through the lenses of maternal theory, we examine the mother-daughter relationship and the role of the mother as maternal trainer. This concrete case study from the ancient Greek world demonstrates the relevance for historians of religions of considering past polytheistic systems while harnessing the fruitful interdisciplinary potential of maternal theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the popular depiction of apocalyptic New Religious Movements in the television show "The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" revealing how the premise of this sitcom reflects deep cultural anxiety about gender, sex, and religion. It mentions apocalyptic belief contributes to the easy dismissal of women's religious belief and participation in sexual difference as evidence of coercion and abuse. It also mentions space for sexual difference not afforded to members.

Can souls be saved out of purgatory? This question became a very important one during the thirteenth century when the female experience heavily influenced the spiritual landscape. At the root of this question, lies a dynamic tension between divine compassion and justice. Debates about this tension are of great interest to contemporary theology because it strikes at the core of Christianity - it is a story about sin and grace. Using the female practice of saving souls from purgatory, I explore two different positions in the debate. To begin, I focus on the position of the Holy Women, more specifically, on how they were believed to save souls. Secondly, I contrast their position with the mystical theology of Hadewijch, who takes a new turn in the female history of spiritually. I demonstrate that the praxis of saving souls explores relevant theological themes, such as judgement and compassion, pain and unconditional Love. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of Caroline Walker Bynum's essential studies on the crucial role food played in the lives of medieval religious women, significant attention has been given to the connection between premodern women's spiritual practices and eating practices. However, the relationship between religious women and food is not limited to body manipulation, inedia or eucharistic frenzy. Indeed, recent critical work has provided accessible translations and critical apparatus necessary for an exploration of food and women's religiosity that builds on Bynum's rich foundation and examines the many ways in which women expressed themselves through food, both material and metaphoric. This approach not only allows students to engage with women's writing through the familiarity and universality of food, but moreover reminds them of the real, living, breathing women behind the texts, thus opening the door to a feminist rereading of texts--not as proto-feminist themselves, but rather in the re-valuing of the substantial contributions of their female authors, who had subtle social awareness, public professional pursuits, and complex and varied relationships with God. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Third order women religious actively participated in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Italian society. Scholars have argued that the introduction of monastic enclosure for all women religious after the Council of Trent crushed non-enclosed forms of female monasticism in Italy and Europe. The study of third orders reveals, however, that non-enclosed monastic communities survived the Tridentine reforms and met specific social needs in the early modern society. Third order women religious provided education, care, and companionship to women of all ages and socioeconomic ranks. They thus filled a gap left by other monastic and custodial institutions. Ecclesiastical and secular authorities as well as neighbors considered women’s third orders an asset to local communities. Drawing on examples from Bergamo and Bologna, this article examines the social activities of tertiary women and shows activity to be a useful category of analysis for recovering the place of women religious in early modern society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radical pietistic and renewal movements gave rise to a diverse number of communities throughout northern Europe starting in the late seventeenth century. Many groups practiced a conventicle-style piety, in which they held religious services in private settings such as houses. A distinctive feature of these semi-sequestered communities was the extent to which women took on active roles, sometimes to the point of leading and directing their fellow believers. Focusing on the Netherlandish mystic Antoinette Bourignon and the English Philadelphian Jane Lead, this article examines how these women adapted their religious, social, and domestic activity to meet the functions and demands of community leadership. It argues that Bourignon and Lead redefined and troubled the boundaries between their religious and domestic lives as they sought to practice an individual piety while also transforming private houses into sites of active communal religious life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to study the collectives of religious women who lived at the end of the Middle Ages in Andalusia. Researches about this item multiplied in the last years, but the analysis has been made from an institutional perspective. The novelty of my investigation is based on the analysis of their economic basis and their religious vocation, as on their family ties that their lifestyle allowed them to keep unlike religious women living in enclosed environments. Even they didn't renounce to maternity. Enter into the privacy of religious women's lives has been possible thanks to the information contained in the compilation of Public Notaries' official records preserved at the Municipal Archive of Jerez de la Frontera. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates canon 13 of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), arguing that scholars have been too ready to interpret the canon as a prohibition against new religious orders. By examining the difference between rdigio and ordo, and by examining the broader context of reform movements within western Christendom in the long twelfth century, including Innocent Ill's actions as well as grassroots initiatives, this article notes that canon 13 did not ban new orders and that it was not as restrictive as it has been considered. While this article is not the first to note this, the implications of such a reassessment still deserve more scrutiny, including the implications for women in particular. A more flexible appreciation of the context of corporate religious life out of which canon 13 grew, and to which it contributed, helps us to understand better the religious lives of thirteenth-century women, including Beguines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article concerns two of Richard Crashaw's oddities: the prevalence of women religious and the over-saturation of fluids. These facets of Crashaw's verse have captivated scholars and already induced interesting work. While scholars tend to emphasise Crashaw's religious and fluid content (often in terms of its lyrical excess and its role in religious ecstasy, which is cast as the solitary fancy of the poet), this article analyses Crashaw's content in light of his 'fluid form' in order to complicate an underlying assumption in Crashaw scholarship, namely, that ecstatic states are primarily solitary, typified by the subject's excessive overcoming of self. The task of recasting Crashavian ecstasy will lend added texture to a reconceptualisation of Crashaw's association with foreignness and its operation in promoting a paradoxical Christian communion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the active engagement of women religious in early modern urban space. Focusing on the implementation of monastic enclosure in the aftermath of the Council of Trent (1545-1563), current scholarship highlights a dichotomy between convent space and urban space in the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries. Subject to enclosure, women religious were limited in their interactions with the laity and thus barred from early modern urban space, even if early modern convents emerged as an imposing presence in that urban space. Considering space as social production and drawing on examples from Bologna, this article contest the dichotomous view of convents in early modern urban space. Rather than separated from the urban space around them, women religious established multilayered social and economic relationships with laity and enjoyed an active presence in early modern urban space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines the construction of women in religious discourse and the negative views on religion and morality in Mercè Rodoreda’s much acclaimed novel La plaça del Diamant (1962). I analyse specifically the protagonist’s attitudes towards the Catholic Church as a patriarchal institution responsible for the predicament she goes through as woman and wife. Natalia’s attitude towards religious dogmas, forms and its rituals has so far remained a barely detected phenomenon in Rodoreda’s work, because her underlying radical ideas are often obfuscated by means of stylistic features like ellipses, metaphors and symbolism. Despite the constraints imposed by Franco’s state censorship and Rodoreda’s strategies to bypass it, Natalia’s unbelief in Christian theology and her loss of faith provide a context for reading the novel from a perspective which poses the need to overcome Christian morality on behalf of a higher, truer and more human sense of morality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Colonial migration and settlement rhythms entangle the shores and hinterlands of the Western Indian Ocean region religiously, economically, and socially until today. While historiographic and biographic studies are often centred on men in the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, this paper sheds light on current life worlds of South Asian women in a rural South African area. The women display religiosity in the midst of a generation gap between 'old' and 'new' Indians, 'locals' and 'foreigners', respectively. The paper attempts an analysis of transoceanic migration networks. This is necessary because the post-apartheid phenomenon of renewed Indian-South African relations questions notions of belonging. The ethnographic research focuses on South Asian Muslims, often from Gujarat or from what today is known as Pakistan. It teases out a deeper understanding of classbased, racially inflected Islamic practices within the configuration of global Muslim social relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of da’wah management, the functions of the mosque are not optimal yet. The activities of the masjid are only focused on the center of worship, religious activities, but have not touched the equality yet. In order to answer the problems above, the researcher used fieldwork with the method of case studies. Through an in-depth interview technique, participant observation and study of documentation found that Masjid Mujahidin Pontianak has involved women in the management of masjid, and succeeded in increasing the functions of the masjid. Involving women in the management of masjid will strengthen one dimension that is important in Islam that is Islam seriously upholds the equality of degree in various aspect, including Islam is a religion that highly responsive gender. When the management of mosque is filled with a variety of different groups, including giving places to women, then frictions and clashes caused by differences in the understanding in the society will be minimized, and then the role and function of masjid will be able to touch various aspects such as economics, health, and education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the spirit of tracing continuities between an occluded past (Hindu-majority India) with the present-day nation of Muslim Pakistan, this article examines Malka Pukhraj's memoir, Song Sung True (2003), which weaves a narrative of courtly and classical music and folklore traditions of early twentieth-century Indo-Pakistan in her performative work. As a classically trained female singer of India and Pakistan, Pukhraj enacts a tale of gender, class and 'respectability politics' that poses a challenge to traditional norms at one level, while paradoxically working within/even accepting some of these same norms. Her work can be read as a Pakistani-style 'queer' performative monologue that allows her to signify a persona as a singer and a woman at a particular historical juncture in India and later in Pakistan. And that resists fitting in to a monolithic definition of any of these constructs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has previously been suggested that prosociality is correlated with the degree of religiousness. However, experimental and meta-analytical studies cast doubt on the existence of such a relationship. Due to the controversy over the link between religiousness and prosocial behavior, and the existence of only a small number of ecological experiments focusing on this relationship, we tested the effect of a religious salient day, a previously uninvestigated effect, on prosocial behavior. Specifically, across two experiments (N= 405) and in an ecological setting in Portugal, we tested whether prosocial behavior would increase on a religious salient day compared to a non-religious regular day. We found a gender-related effect: Women, on a religious day, were more inclined to agree to a prosocial behavior than on a non-religious day, whereas men did not change their behavior. We discuss such a difference in behavior, as well as the implications of our studies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The aim of this paper is to two fold-first, to set forth a definition of "mastery" as it is understood across diverse Buddhist traditions. Secondly, using verses from the Therigatha, I argue that the first female monastics meet the criteria of Buddhist masters. My claim is based on evidence from the teachings of the historical Buddha and by citing examples from the elder female disciples, and finally, by illustrating that the embodied experience as women was central to their development of mastery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sensitive issues, rife in religious studies and in theology, present a pedagogical challenge when teaching students to nuance their thinking around positions that are often sharply defined and elicit strong feelings. I developed a learning tool that I call the 'Agency Paradigm.' The purpose of this tool is to help students comprehend diversity within religious traditions, particularly regarding the agencies of women who are committed to them. Drawing on the open and critical dialogue of emancipatory pedagogy, the Agency Paradigm encourages students to explore a range of ways women in world religions choose to act in varying contexts. This approach to teaching world religions increases students' cognitive knowledge base and expands their understanding of each of the religions studied in the course, as examined through the perspective of differing women; it also assists them in developing their own agency through thoughtful reflection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we analyze two contemporary local Eastern Orthodox contexts, Estonia and Finland, which are related and yet different. We are especially interested in how women negotiate with their Orthodox faith and, within it, the figure of the Mother of God. We are interested in the intersections of popular Mariology (both beliefs and practises), gender and ethnicity. We explore Marian interpretations among Finnish and Estonian Seto women because the Mother of God occupies a special role and meaning for women in both cultures. This meaning could be described as a simultaneous process of identification with Mary and differentiation from her. In this interplay, both Mary's gendered humanity and her ability for divine intervention are accentuated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]