Spirituality

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Poetry is Not A Luxury & Mighty Be Our Powers

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Closely examining our matrifocal past and present offers a solid basis from which to theorize a possible healthier future — one not damagingly based in androcentrism. Such a future will not come about on its own, of course; if women are to regain their rightful positions as cultural creators and leaders then they will have…

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Fascinatingly more on matrifocal societies

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Both Sanday (reviewed by me here and here) and Du are anthropologically trained ethnographers researching indigenous societies. As previously noted, their work offers explicit epistemological modifications of great benefit for a more humane, feminized science. This is not the only valid methodology available, however, to a women’s spirituality scholar, as is demonstrated by the next…

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Refusing Standard Masculinities

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The following was part of a subsection in my comps essay which was titled “Theorizing Patriarchy Past & Present,” which performed said theorizing via a variety of epistemologies. I reviewed the hypothesized roots of patriarchy, surveyed the broad cultural expression of its impact on women of antiquity as well as more recent history, researched its…

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A History for Women and a Feminism for Everyone

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…and now back to my comps essay book reviews! :) A more sweeping view of women throughout history, including both their loss of power and their struggle to both resist and reclaim it within the kyriarchy, is brilliantly demonstrated by English journalist, broadcaster, and social critic Rosalind Miles’ book Who Cooked the Last Supper? The…

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The Real Wealth of Nations: the people

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Irigaray’s fascinating work, which I reviewed yesterday, calls for a radical change in the individual’s worldview as expressed through an intersubjective spiritual caring and hospitality, but is (perhaps unfortunately) also written primarily for the academic. Intriguingly, in the same year an eminently pragmatic book was published on much the same subject, though from a far…

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The first 20,000 years: women’s work & women’s social power

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As we work towards shaping social realities, research on women-centered societies which are based upon cooperation and partnership facilitates a more sophisticated discussion of cultural alternatives. This discussion also ensures that the voices of women of color are respectfully heard and recognized as both researchers of integrity applying a wide variety of methodological approaches to…

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A review of the comps essay

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I’ve come to the conclusion — which I shall not be officially sharing with my school — that the comprehensive essays are inefficient for demonstrating comprehension. They are effectively a 50 page essay (not including the title page or Bibliography) in which you discuss the books you choose for a particular subject, such as my…

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What is humankind’s “worst discovery” ever? part 1

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A common assumption I’ve frequently read is that the “worst discovery” made by humankind was agriculture, in that it taught men (not humans) the concept of property. The rather androcentric theorizing seems to be that once men conceptualize food as property which can be hoarded away despite the needs of others, it’s invariably a short…

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Women & World Religions comps booklist, take II

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This has been a very strange semester so far, and I’m less than a week in. Amongst other things, my Women & World Religions comps essay prof did another review of my bibliography, and suggested some changes. I found this odd for two reasons: 1) I thought we’d agreed on the official booklist at the…