This book puts forward a new epistemological framework for a theory of religion and gender’s role in the public sphere. It provides a sophisticated understanding of gender and its relation to religion as a primarily performative category of knowledge production, rooting that understanding in case studies from around the world.
Gender and religion are examined alongside biopolitics and the influence of capitalism, neoliberalism and empire. The book analyses the interdependence of religion, gender and new nationalisms in the Palestinian territories, South Africa and the USA, scrutinising the biopolitical interferences of nation states and dominant political and religious institutions. It then moves on to uncover counter-discourses and spaces of activism and agency in contexts such as East Germany and the Occupy Wall Street movement. Using gender, queer and trans theory in tandem with postcolonial and post-secular perspectives, readers are shown a more nuanced understanding of critical contemporary questions related to religion, gender and sexuality.
This is a bold new take on religion, gender and public life. As such, it will be of keen interest to scholars of Religious Studies and Gender Studies, as well as those working on religion’s interaction with Politics, Sociology and Social Activism.
Table of Contents:
1 Introduction; Part I Theory of Religion as Theory of Knowledge; 2 Tensions in the Study of Gender, Religion and Theology; 3 Gender and Religion as Categories of Knowledge. Deconstruction, Discourse Analysis, Intersectionality, Deessentialisation, Disidentification and the Critique of Ancient Texts; 4 The Political-Performative Power of Language, Appropriation, Cultures of Translation and Travelling Theory. The Discourse of the "Bible in Just Language" against Gender and Social Exclusions and Anti-Judaism; Part II Religion, Secularity and Gender after the Post-Secular Turn; 5 Fundamentalisms and Secularisms. Sovereign Power, Biopolitical Citizenship and the Possibilities of Subaltern Agency; 6 The New Role of Religion in the Public Sphere. Redefining Secularity and Secularisms in Europe and Beyond; Part III Religion, Gender, Neo-Nationalisms and Biopolitics; 7 Religious Legitimation of National Gender Construction. Masculine Hegemony in the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission – Christianity versus Ubuntu; 8 Biopolitical Interferences of Nation States and Dominant Religious Institutions. The Epistemological Challenge of Queer Parenthood and Rainbow Children; 9 Human Rights, Gender and Religion. Controversies in Political, Social, Cultural and Sexuality Discources; Part IV Religion, Gender, Activism and the Multiplicity of Agency; 10 Religion, Gender and the Peaceful Revolution of 1989. On the Conflictual Relationships between Feminisms and Theologies in East and West Germany; 11 Imagining Futures through the Multitude. Religion, Gender and Agency in the Occupy Wall Street Movement; 12 Decolonising Public Space. A Critique of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s and Gayatri Ch. Spivak’s Concepts of Resistance, Religion and Gender; 13 Connecting Activism with Postcolonial, Post-Secular and Queer Epistemology. Resistance and the Radical Social Imaginary in Eastern European Dissidence and New Social Movements; Part V Religion, Gender, Visual Culture and Performativity; 14 Creating Archives of Agency Photography after the Post-Secular Turn. On the Performativity of Tattoos, Textiles and Islam in Mali
