Liturgy and the Female Body

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

From antiquity to today, women have shaped and been shaped by liturgy. This course examines the relationship between ritual and the female body across history and Christian traditions, from the biblical period, through late antiquity and the middle ages, to the present. Topics covered include the female body in sacred space (veils, gender separation, etc.), bodily presence at worship and the issue of (im)purities (menstrual and postpartum blood), rites for childbirth and child loss, representations of the female body in liturgical texts and iconography, and women's ritual agency and authority in monastic communities and beyond. Our methods will be interdisciplinary and draw from liturgiology, theology, history and anthropology.