Womanhood, Gender, and Religion

3-0-9 units. HASS-H · Undergraduate

Examines how religious traditions, theologies, and practices help produce and reproduce conceptions of womanhood and gendered bodies. Analyzes how religious traditions inform and direct shifting conceptions of gender in contemporary world. Studies religion and gender from top-down views through scripture, religious structures, theological debates, and myths of cosmological and human origins. Analyzes gendered experiences of religion including sexuality, menstruation, spirit possession, religious laws, and embodied expressions of faith. Explores questions of religious leadership, queering religion, sites of worship, and afterlife. Introductory study of religious, philosophical, and cultural traditions including: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Western secularism, and Indigenous spiritual and religious practices. Assessments include a creative writing project, ethnographic interview, and book review. Enrollment limited to 50.