Gender and Religion: On the Complexity of Symbols

by Caroline Walker Bynum (Editor), Michael Allen Williams (Contributor), John Stratton Hawley (Contributor)

Contents:
Introduction : the complexity of symbols / Caroline Walker Bynum
pt. 1.
Gender as culturally constructed meaning: Iranian sofreh : from collective to female ritual / Laal Jamzadeh and Margaret Mills
Ambiguous gender : male initiation in a northern Thai Buddhist society / Charles F. Keyes
Men, women, and ghosts in Tainwanese folk religion / Stevan Harrell
The priesthood and motherhood in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints / Carolyn M. Wallace
pt. 2.
Gender as polysemic symbol: The portrayal of a female renouncer in a Tamil Buddhist text / Paula Richman
Gender and cosmology in Chinese correlative thinking / Alison H. Black
Uses of gender imagery in ancient Gnostic texts / Michael A. Williams
pt. 3.
Gender as point-of-view: Images of gender in the poetry of Krishna / John Stratton Hawley
" ... And woman his humanity" : female imagery in the religious writing of the later Middle Ages / Caroline Walker Bynum
Male and female perspectives on a psychoanalytic myth / John E. Toews.

326 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Caroline Walker Bynum is an American medieval scholar and University Professor emerita at Columbia University, as well as Professor emerita of Western Medieval History at the Institute for Advanced Study. She was the first woman appointed University Professor at Columbia, served as Dean of the School of General Studies, and led both the American Historical Association and the Medieval Academy of America. Her research focuses on how medieval people, particularly women, understood the human body and physicality within spiritual and theological contexts, highlighting female piety and the role of women in late-medieval Europe. She has received numerous honors and taught at Harvard, Washington, Columbia, and Princeton.