A Garland of Feminist Reflections : Forty Years of Religious Exploration

Rita M. Gross has long been acknowledged as a founder in the field of feminist theology. One of the earliest scholars in religious studies to discover how feminism affects that discipline, she is recognized as preeminent in Buddhist feminist theology. The essays in __A Garland of Feminist Reflections__ represent the major aspects of her work and provide an overview of her methodology in women's studies in religion and feminism. The introductory article, written specifically for this volume, summarizes the conclusions Gross has reached about gender and feminism after forty years of searching and exploring, and the autobiography, also written for this volume, narrates how those conclusions were reached. These articles reveal the range of scholarship and reflection found in Rita M. Gross's work and demonstrate how feminist scholars in the 1970s shifted the paradigm away from an androcentric model of humanity and forever changed the way we study religion. Contents Part one . Introductory Materials Introducing A Garland of Feminist Reflections 1. How Did This Ever Happen to Me? Part two . Five Essays on Method 2. Androcentrism and Androgyny in the Methodology of History of Religions 3. Where Have We Been? Where Do We Need to Go? 4. The Place of the Personal and the Subjective in Religious Studies 5. Methodology: Tool or Trap? 6. What Went Wrong? Part three.Feminism and Freedom from the Prison of Gender Roles 7. Menstruation and Childbirth as Ritual and Religious Experience among Native Australians 8. Toward a New Model of the Hindu Pantheon Part four . Feminist Theology 10. Steps toward Feminine Imagery in Jewish Theology 11. Is the (Hindu) Goddess a Feminist? 12. Life-Giving Images in Vajrayana Buddhist Ritual 13. Feminist Theology as Theology of Religions Part five . Buddhist Feminism: Feminist Buddhism 14. The Clarity in the Anger 15. Why (Engaged) Buddhists Should Care about Gender Issues 16. The Dharma of Gender 17. Yeshe Tsogyel 18. Buddhist Women and Teaching Authority 19. Is the Glass Half-Empty or Half-Full? 20. Being a North American Buddhist Woman Notes Rita M. Gross has long been acknowledged as a founder in the field of feminist theology. One of the earliest scholars in religious studies to discover how feminism affects that discipline, she is recognized as preeminent in Buddhist feminist theology. The essays in A Garland of Feminist Reflections represent the major aspects of her work and provide an overview of her methodology in women's studies in religion and feminism. The introductory article, written specifically for this volume, summarizes the conclusions Gross has reached about gender and feminism after forty years of searching and exploring, and the autobiography, also written for this volume, narrates how those conclusions were reached. These articles reveal the range of scholarship and reflection found in Rita M. Gross's work and demonstrate how feminist scholars in the 1970s shifted the paradigm away from an androcentric model of humanity and forever changed the way we study religion. Represents the major aspects of the author's work and provides an overview of her methodology in women's studies in religion and feminism. This work demonstrates how feminist scholars in the 1970s shifted the paradigm away from an androcentric model of humanity and forever changed the way we study religion.