feminism Archives - ��Ƶ of Theology & Psychology

10 Women Theologians You Should Be Reading

��Ƶ — Mon, 07 Oct 2019 16:52:44 +0000

“What are you reading?”

It’s a question often heard within the walls of many learning institutions, yet the answer that follows is typically in regards to a textbook or a predetermined selection of pages for a class.

Today, we’d like to help you expand your reading list—whether you’re a student, life-long learner, or someone who enjoys settling down with a good, theological read.

But this is no ordinary list of “must-reads.” Through recommendations from faculty and staff, we’ve compiled a list of women theologians who are shaping and challenging discussions around womanist theology, race, feminism, and women and gender in scripture.

We hope you are able to explore and uncover the depth, wisdom, and insight these women theologians have to offer.

Recommended by: Jennifer Fernandez, PhD, ABD

“She’s an activist! She’s a scholar! She’s a theologian! Basically she’s a triple threat. After serving two, five- year terms as president of Chicago Theological Seminary, Thistlethwaite has gone on to work as a public scholar and even returned to teaching. Her work focuses on women, violence, peace, and justice.”

For your reading list:
In , Brooks-Thistlewaite analyzes the scaffolding in Western culture and Christianity that perpetuates widespread violence against women.

Recommended by: Jennifer Fernandez, PhD, ABD

“Padilla is a Latinx theologian who constructively brings together current philosophical issues with Christian theology, Latin American religious thought, and mysticism. She explores issues such as borders and migration, race, and ecology in ways that bridge the philosophical with the spiritual.”

For your reading list:
In , Padilla explores what it means to focus on the possibility that God experiences our joys in deeply communal and relational ways.

Recommended by: Kj Swanson, PhD

“Born in Japan and raised in a US Military family, Nakashima Brock was the first Asian-American woman to earn a doctorate in theology (1988). She has been a foundational voice in numerous areas of theological and civic discourse, from feminist theology to the Truth Commission on Conscience in War (2010). Nakashima Brock’s theology is deeply relational while also engaging issues of systemic oppression and abuse, taking seriously the call of love towards justice.”

For your reading list:

Recommended by: Chelle Stearns, PhD

“Tanner’s work dives deep into the gift-giving nature of who God is as Father, Son, and Spirit. Ultimately, because God graciously gives us gifts, we become a gift to the world. Her non-competitive model of God and creation has shaped my theology in significant ways.”

For your reading list:

Recommended by: J.P. Kang, PhD

“An esteemed pioneer in the text-based exploration of women and gender in scripture, Dr. Phyllis Trible is an internationally recognized biblical scholar and rhetorical critic. She is the Baldwin Professor Emerita of Sacred Literature at Union Theological Seminary in New York and a past president of the Society of Biblical Literature ().”

For your reading list:
In , she leads readers into encountering four biblical women (Hagar, Tamar, an unnamed concubine, and the daughter of Jephthah) and models the transformative power of careful and close readings.

Recommended by: Chelle Stearns, PhD

“Her writing provokes me in so many ways, causing me to stop and rethink my assumptions. She is the primary reason that the category of desire has woven itself through my theological work.”

For your reading list:

Recommended by: Chelle Stearns, PhD

“She is considered the ‘founding foremother’ of Womanist theology and has encouraged a whole new generation of female theologians to arise and speak.”

For your reading list:

Recommended by: Darren Sumner, PhD

“A rigorous and careful theologian, Prof. Sonderegger models for our guild a commitment to the enduring value of classical doctrine and a calm humility in going about the work of theology. She has a deep love for the tradition and a desire to take it seriously in an era when many pay little mind to matters such as Trinity, Christology, and the church as a locus of divine mission.”

For your reading list:

Recommended by: Andrea Sielaff, MA

“She has a significant body of published work, including work on sexual violence, embodied theology, (dis)ability theologies, trauma, and trinitarian theology. She has also co-authored a textbook and reader on religious studies and she is the recipient of several grants for the teaching of religious studies.”

For your reading list:

Recommended by: Chelle Stearns, PhD

“I love how she brings her life experience as a mother to bear upon her theology. Her Christological thinking has radically challenged and deepened my understanding of how God meets us in our suffering and our lingering traumas.”

For your reading list:

Stay tuned to the Intersections blog for next month’s list, Women of Color Theologians. Email submissions@theseattleschool.edu to make a recommendation!

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Politics, Theology, and Spiritual Darkness with Annie Mesaros

��Ƶ — Wed, 17 Jul 2019 17:24:22 +0000

On this episode of text.soul.culture, Shauna Gauthier, Alumni Outreach Coordinator, talks with Annie Mesaros (Master of Divinity, ‘18) about her work in what Annie refers to as political theology—connecting past and present iterations of American Christianity to current systems and dynamics in U.S. politics.

Annie: “While I’m concerned about what you would think of as politics—what would be in the political section of a newspaper—I’m also thinking about the politics of being human, the politics of church, the relational dynamics between people and between groups. That’s kind of what I mean by political in the broader sense.”

Annie is the host of , a podcast exploring the long and often problematic story of Christianity in the United States, grounded in the hope that by better understanding where other perspectives are coming from, we can be better conversation partners across difference and contribute to sustainable, collaborative social change.” Her work is primarily concerned with two questions, she says: What do we believe it means to be human? And what do we believe is true about God? On God Help Us, Annie and her guests wrestle with how both of those questions inform our relationship to each other and our response to events in the world around us.

Annie: “God Help Us is about information, it’s about what are our commonly held beliefs in this country, how are they informed by our Christian heritage? […] I’m hoping, on a more meta level, that it’s also a way of modeling those conversations, so we can feel defensive and have all the human range of emotions while we’re disagreeing with each other and still continue to talk to each other.”

Much of Annie’s work can be connected to the category of spiritual darkness, which was the focus of her Integrative Project at ��Ƶ, “Making a Home in the Dark.” In our 2018 Integrative Project Symposium, Annie offered this insight into what draws her to working with spiritual darkness: “I think that in those times when everything has been stripped away, we also lose hold of the lies we have believed about ourselves, about each other, and about God. So I’m left only with my desire and the question of what to do with it, and the question of what to do with this new reality. And I find that the only option really is to come home to myself. And in those places, I find that God is waiting for me there.”

Annie: “When we recognize that we have put our faith in something like patriarchy, it doesn’t let us go easily. These periods of darkness, of feeling completely lost and at our wits’ end, both communally and individually—it forces us to give up hope in what we’ve put our hope in. And that is this great gift that we can then decide we’re going to do something different now.”

In an era of fragmented relationships—and, therefore, fragmented politics—we are deeply grateful for the insightful, far-reaching conversations Annie is hosting. Here’s to listening deeply, speaking boldly, and returning again and again to our connections with each other.

Resources to Go Deeper

You can learn more about Annie’s work, including God Help Us, at . And if you have ideas for future topics or guests on the podcast, email godhelp.podcast@gmail.com.
As this conversation turned to purity culture, it brought to mind an article by Lauren Sawyer (MA in Theology & Culture, (‘14). Shauna asked Lauren to record an excerpt for this episode, and here’s the full article from Feminist Studies in Religion:
To be fair, Annie’s reference to is more tangential than thematic. But it really is a great film!
Shauna references an episode from NPR’s Invisibilia podcast about the relationship between uncertainty and dogmatism, and what we do when we don’t know what to do.
Annie mentions being inspired by this article from Tyrone Beason at the Seattle Times:
Just in time for summer, we got a bunch of book recommendations from Annie. Happy reading!
- by Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers
- by Frank Schaeffer
- and by Amber Cantorna
- by Mary Daly
- by Miguel A. de la Torre

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Disrupting the Objectification of the White Single Woman

��Ƶ — Wed, 20 Feb 2019 18:10:58 +0000

Amidst cultural messages about romance, dating, and marriage, singleness is often relegated to the sidelines. Or, in efforts to wield power and control, it is turned into a trope—a caricature onto which our society can project fears and assumptions and stereotypes. In her capstone Integrative Project, Kellye Kuh (MA in Theology & Culture, ‘18) dove into this reality through the particular experience of the single white woman, exploring what underlies the objectification of singleness and how we can begin to change it.

“On a regular basis, I don’t want to be too excited or too sad or too happy—I definitely don’t want to be too affectionate, and I don’t want to be too wild, because there are stereotypes about people like me and I don’t want to fulfill them.”

Kellye shares how this project grew out of her experience “managing the stigma of being a white single woman every day,” cautious of how she interacts with others and constantly aware of what she wears, whom she sits next to, and how she acts and speaks. Kellye clarifies that, while many of these dynamics also affect single women of color in profound and unique ways, due to the scope of Kellye’s project, the availability of existing research, and the uniquely particular experiences of intersecting identities, she is speaking primarily to the experience of white single women.

“The single white woman—people are afraid of her. And as a result they objectify her.”

After tracing a brief history of the ideals and expectations placed on white women in the United States—including the prioritization of heterosexual coupledom and the near deification of the family—Kellye discusses how stereotypes are used to channel fear by turning a person into an object, something that we can handle and use. Her project zeroes in on the label of one particular stereotype: the “basic bitch.”

“If singleness is considered lesser than in today’s society, and if being female is considered lesser than, then why are people afraid and why are they calling me names?”

You’re probably familiar with the caricature the label refers to—the white woman who loves Starbucks, wears yoga pants, watches Sex and the City and The Bachelor, has no opinions of her own, and is obsessed with finding partnership. Kellye argues that this stereotype was formed by the fear of two particular values: mystery and eroticism. Our culture often does not know how to handle either, so a caricature is created that is stripped of all eroticism and lacks any mystery whatsoever. “The ‘basic’ woman is simple,” says Kellye. “There’s nothing about her I do not know, and that makes me feel better.”

Kellye’s final thoughts cut to the heart of this issue, and she leaves us with questions that might open us to meaningful, life-giving work:

“What is so scary about being mysterious, and what is so scary about being erotic? And how do you individually express your mystery? Because the way I see it is, if we can each express our mystery, then if someone else feels mysterious, it probably won’t be so scary anymore. And the same with eroticism: how do you individually own and express this eroticism on a daily basis?”

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Not A Luxury: On Women’s Voices and National Poetry Month

Brittany Deininger — Fri, 20 Apr 2018 14:00:54 +0000

In honor of National Poetry Month, poet-theologian Brittany Deininger reflects on how poetry is a place of both radical resistance and beautiful intersectionality. Brittany reminds us of the fierce vitality of honest, embodied art, and she shares a list of her favorite contemporary women poets. Happy reading!

What does it mean to read? This question has been on my mind as we entered National Poetry Month. In a world where our attention has become the greatest commodity, which voices we choose to listen to in the cacophony is not a neutral act. Much of my own reading is driven by a deep hunger to hear a diversity of other women’s voices. The root of good writing is good reading. In particular, I gravitate toward women who wield the medium which Audre Lorde once referred to as, “a revelation and distillation of experience.” Poetry’s communication has immediacy that taps into the way we feel, forge memory, and make meaning. As both oral and written art, it has held the human voice throughout the ages with embodied particularity. And yet, there are so many voices and bodies that have not been heard. This art form so defined by active attention has much to teach us about how to listen and the empathetic responsibility we have to hear one another well.

In 1985, poet Audre Lorde wrote a fierce and stunning essay called, “Poetry is Not a Luxury.” In it, her poetic prose argued that, “For women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action. Poetry is the way we give name to the nameless so it can be thought.” For Lorde, “poetry” was a soulful shorthand for an artistic and cultural process of women listening to their lives and finding a form of communication that gave it privilege, shape, identity, and freedom. She saw poetry as having a particular relationship with the ineffable. Where there was wordlessness and namelessness, this art form gave birth to voice, efficacy, and action.

“The root of good writing is good reading.”

For this very reason, poetry played a huge role throughout the women’s movement. In his chapter, “The Poetical is the Political” T.V. Reed highlights how the movement of the 1960s and 70s used the art form to claim public space and name oppressions and inequalities that were relegated to the realms of the private, the personal, and the “non-political.” The foundational act of poetry is to make visible the invisible world. Feminist and Womanist poets addressed the invisibility both of women’s experiences and the patriarchal systems that went unnamed and invisible to the normative eye. Through poetry, personal experience could become collective experiences, which made way for consciousness raising, theory, activism, and change. The epistemological shift within the movement and the poetry it wielded was to count women’s lived experiences as knowledge. That knowledge had language and power of presence to deconstruct the binaries of public and private, emotion and reason.

Now as then, poetry is a place of radical resistance. To celebrate one’s life and its wisdom through art is a kind of protest against systems that undermine and demand its silence. Spoken word and hip-hop artists, poets and storytellers around the world continue in the movement toward women’s equality by sharing the truth of their experiences in their own voices. What it means to read is to choose to listen. This April, I invite you to listen to contemporary voices of women through this ancient and ever-new art form. Poetry is not a luxury. Listening to the voices of women is not a luxury.

Where to Start: Recommended Reading

This list represents just 25 of my favorite books of poetry by women that have powerfully impacted the way I think, read, and create as a poet. To narrow the list, I chose women who’ve published books of poetry between 2000-2018. I’ve permitted myself exceptions by including newly published volumes of complete works by some of my favorite poets. These voices represent the beautiful intersectionality that we write from as women. Their art diversely navigates nationality, race, sexual orientation, embodiment, age, religion, and class. Some are prolific greats and others are exciting emerging voices. All have robust and prophetic insight from their locatedness in the world. Whether you’re dipping a toe into poetry or already have a robust practice, may these suggestions help you discover, return to, and share your favorites!

25 Recommended Books of Poetry by Women:
(Selections published between 2000-2018 appear in alphabetical order by last name.)

Crave Radiance, Elizabeth Alexander (former US Poet Laureate)
Of Poetry & Protest: From Emmett Till to Trayvon Martin, edited and compiled by Philip Cushway and Michael Warr. This anthology features work from a variety of poets.
Bone, Yrsa Daley-Ward
Head Off and Split, Nikky Finney
Faithful and Virtuous Night, Louise Glück (National Book Award Winner)
How We Became Human and Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, Joy Harjo
The Kingdom of Ordinary Time, Marie Howe
Milk and Honey, Rupi Kaur
B and No Matter the Wreckage by Sarah Kay
Inside Out and Back Again, Thanhhà Lại (This is a children’s Newberry Honor book of poetry about immigrating from Vietnam to Alabama amidst the Vietnam War. It could be a great way to include children in this reading activity.)
Whereas, Layli Long Soldier (National Book Award Finalist)
The Collected Poems of Denise Levertov, Denise Levertov, edited by Paul A. Lacey and Anne Dewey
The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde, Audre Lorde
A Maze Me: Poems for Girls, Naomi Shihab Nye (This is a great selection to share with children and young adults.) See also Words Under Words, and Red Suitcase
Thirst, Mary Oliver
The Art of Blessing the Day, Marge Piercy
Citizen, Claudia Rankine (Finalist for the National Book Award; .)
The Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser, Muriel Rukeyser edited by Janet E. Kaufman and Anne F. Herzog
The Best of It: New and Selected Poems, Kay Ryan (former US Poet Laureate)
Cries of the Spirit, edited by Marilyn Sewell (anthology of 300 poems celebrating women’s spirituality)
Unbearable Splendor, 신 선 영 Sun Yung Shin
Here and Map: Collected and Last Poems, Wisława Szymborshka, translated by Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak
Thrall and Native Guard, Natasha Trethewey (former US Poet Laureate)
Salt and Nejma, Nayyirah Waheed
Love Without Limits: The Bi-Laws of Love, Yazmin Monet Watkins

Resources for Further Reading and Engagement with National Poetry Month

Audre Lorde, “Poetry Is Not A Luxury,” in .
T.V. Reed, “The Poetical Is the Political: Feminist Poetry and the Poetics of Women’s Rights,” in .
Alice Walker, “Saving the Life That Is Your Own: The Importance of Models in the Artist’s Life,” in .
Looking for things to do in Seattle to celebrate National Poetry Month? Check out .
Seattle is lucky enough to have a poetry-only bookstore. Check out events or just wander into the sublime .
April 26, 2018 is . Join the national tradition by selecting a favorite and carrying it with you.

The post Not A Luxury: On Women’s Voices and National Poetry Month appeared first on ��Ƶ of Theology & Psychology.

feminism Archives - ������Ƶ of Theology & Psychology

10 Women Theologians You Should Be Reading

Politics, Theology, and Spiritual Darkness with Annie Mesaros

Resources to Go Deeper

Disrupting the Objectification of the White Single Woman

Not A Luxury: On Women’s Voices and National Poetry Month

Where to Start: Recommended Reading

Resources for Further Reading and Engagement with National Poetry Month

feminism Archives - ��Ƶ of Theology & Psychology