Editors’ Introduction

The tasks of discovering effective tools that aid in deconstructing male-centered, female-disempowering frames of thought remain central to the work of feminist scholars in religion. As in other fields, we utilize methodologies and practices that spring from current scholarship even as they simultaneously develop the re/construction of feminist theologies, ethics, arts, and histories. Each contributor to this issue of the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion participates in these feminist endeavors in intriguing ways. An example of such re/construction is Anna Catone’s poetry, which refocuses biblical imagery in a feminist framework. In “Annunciation” and “The Kingdom of This World,” Catone elegantly foregrounds contemporary women’s spiritual concerns.

The growth in cultural studies has provided another tool for feminist scholars in religion to engage in sophisticated analyses of relations between humans of different groups that transcend religious and national lines. The use of cultural studies methodologies can be seen in the special section of this issue that focuses on South Asian religions. That section begins with Karen Pechilis’s introduction, which orients the reader by noting that current scholarship among feminist South Asian religion scholars does not pivot on a choice between a history of religions or a theological approach to research. Pechilis instead points to how these scholars analyze feminine power representations while simultaneously using ethnographic methods to center women’s religious lives. Such grounding in cultural studies contextualizes feminist approaches in the traditions of South Asia. The essays of the special section are bracketed with a conclusion written by Carol Anderson, who identifies the contributions of feminist approaches to South Asian religions, recognizing that these approaches are much more than a simple discussion of women’s oppression or empowerment, with attendant epistemological, postcolonial, identity, and cultural studies at play.

Three essays form the heart of this South Asian section. Pechils’s own work explores the story of the sixth-century Tamil saint Kāraikkāl Ammaiyār. Ammaiyār’s religious path leads her to become “real” through her devotion to the Hindu God Śiva. The tale leads to a reflection on several issues, such as the significance of social status versus ascetism;women’s oppression versus women’s empowerment;and the authentic versus the superficial life. This saint’s story has particular relevance today. Pechilis states: “In thinking about a story of a classical woman saint, I am exploring the pattern’s relevance to a historical woman who was not involved in overtly political activities.”

In the next essay, 2007 Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza New Scholar Award winner Carla Bellamy considers aspects of a particular form of spirit possession at Islamic shrines called ḥāzirī. Bellamy explores women’s power and agency in contemporary practices of spirit possession, emphasizing that ḥāzirī is best understood through cultural theories and ethnographic methods that identify interrelated networks of women’s power, embodied practices, and geographical location. The importance of changing the focus from person to place, she contends, will raise the question: “What might feminist scholarship look like if this shift were incorporated into its critical apparatus creatively?” We congratulate Bellamy on her award for this important contribution to this special section.

Susan Landesman’s essay analyzes the path by which the Buddhist goddess Tārādeveloped, despite the Buddhist belief that gender is just another facet of life’s impermanence and falls away in the process of enlightenment. Yet Tārā’s place in the canon developed as one of the two female enlightened beings in the Tibetan canon with her gender becoming part of her identity. This female Buddha exemplifies compassion and is identified as a “mother” of the Tibetan people.

Global realities present other venues for contemporary reflection;feminist researchers may utilize postcolonial methodologies across disciplines in order to understand religions from international as well as local perspectives. In the context of such global realities and visions, the roundtable discussion is launched with an essay by miriam cooke. Cooke coins the term Muslimwoman in order to describe the reductive, essentialized social rhetorical constructions of women in Islam. The veil becomes a tool for constructing Muslim women as...