Gendering the Spirit: Women, Religion and the Post-Colonial Response - Softcover

Durre Ahmed

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1842770276 ISBN 13: 9781842770276

Publisher: Zed Books, 2002

Synopsis

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About this title

Review:

'This volume is not another feminist critique of fundamentalism but takes us beyond religion into feminine spirituality from the point of view of various cultures - Muslim, Hindu, Christian and Buddhist. The book is a formidable step forward in crosscultural reflection on spirituality and feminism.' Jan Nederveen Pieterse, University of Illinois 'With a wealth of depth and originality, the collection overall makes for an excellent read.' Ayesha Jalal, Economic and Political Weekly 'A real treasure trove... It provides superb resources for researchers and students interested in gender and religion, in Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and Christianity in Southeast Asia, and in theories about the feminine and masculine drawn from religion, psychology, mythology and symbolism...All in all, this is an excellent publication which deserves to be widely known and read.' Feminist Theology Journal 'This remarkable collection of essays is a much-needed addition to the burgeoning literature on women's spirituality...enthusiastically recommended for both scholars and students in religious studies, cultural studies, and women's studies.' Journal of Asian Studies 'Gendering the Spirit is a significant contribution to the nascent field of women and religion...Not only does the book provide an extraordinary overview of women's spirituality, past and present; but it also introduces the reader to an often hidden world of love, compassion and, most important today, resistance.' Anna Suvorova, Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences 'A very timely and welcome addition to the growing literature on women and religions....all told, Gendering the Spirit is one book that is highly and enthusiastically recommended.' Shahla Haerie, Boston University 'Gendering the Spirit is a tour de force in women's studies - uncovering the elements of the longue duree (long duration), the subterranean, the half hidden, the half realised forces softly at work - incisive, tackling the big question and placing the stories of women who made a difference within it.' Latika Padgaonkar, The Pioneer 'By emphasizing the frameworks through which "religion" is understood, Ahmed's structuring of the volume highlights unacknowledged assumptions in Northern academic discourse as it addresses women, gender and spirituality. This engaging collection significantly expands this discourse. Readers will be tantalized for further work on (post)coloniality, gender and religion, and explorations into how power infuses analyses of religion, culture and gdner, as well as normative projects that proceed from such work.' Donna Maeda, Journal of the American Academy of Religion

From the Author:

'This remarkable collection of essays should disturb the world of frozen knowledge and its ideas of what constitute sane dissent and a proper ideology of resistance. For the aim of these heretical essays is nothing less than the simultaneous defiance of mainstream religion, the standardised understanding of religious experience that academic respectability has popularised, and conventional research methods, emphasising clear-cut differences between the observer and the observed, faith and objectivity, the therapist and the faith healer. The familiar categories of the social knowledge industry blur, dissolve or recombine in strange, uncanny ways in these accounts of feminine spirituality, exoteric forms of resistance, and constructions of the inner life at the margins of the known world. This is unconventional scholarship at its most intriguing.'

Ashis Nandy, author of 'Traditions, Tyranny and Utopias: Essays in the Politics of Awareness' and 'The Savage Freud and Other Essays on Possible and Retrievable Selves'

' This powerful and elegant volume brings to light hidden conversations among women across cultures and other boundaries. This is a formidable step forward in crosscultural reflection on religion, spirituality and feminism.'

Jan Nederveen Pieterse, Professor of Sociology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and author of 'Development Theory: Deconstructions/Reconstructions'

About this edition

• Publisher: Zed Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1842770276
• ISBN 13: 9781842770276
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256
• Editor: Durre Ahmed