Women's Studies in Religion Brings New Voices, Perspectives

By Susan G. Parker

Special to the Gazette

Feminists often ignore religion in their work; religion scholars

often ignore women. The Women's Studies in Religion Program at the

Divinity School bridges that gap.

Each year, five visiting scholars pursue a research project on

subjects that advance scholarship on gender, culture, and religion and bring women to the center of analysis. The scholars each teach a seminar and give public lectures on their projects, and meet together to exchange ideas and methodologies.

The program began in 1980 and is the only one of its kind. It was preceded in the 1970s by an innovative dissertation-level program of fellowships in women's studies.

"The Women's Studies in Religion Program develops in our students an awareness of the interaction of religion, gender, and culture that will enrich and strengthen their future service as leaders in religious and public life," says Dean Ronald F. Thiemann.

"It gives the study of women in religion a privileged place," adds Deborah Valenze, associate professor of history at Barnard College and interim director of the Women's Studies program during 1997-98. "Ordinarily the study of women in religion is marginalized in academia."

Western feminists have often ignored religion as integral to women's lives, seeing it instead as an oppressive force, says Valenze. Yet women are often the linchpin of local religious activity. Religious belief, for example, served as the bedrock for the early suffragettes. "The 19th-century women's rights movement was a religious movement, even in its own language," says Phyllis B. Cole, an associate professor of English at Penn State who was a visiting scholar in the program during 1984-85. The study of women is inextricably linked to the study of religion, she adds. That is "the thesis of this program."

"What is particularly useful about the program is that it makes a point of trying to bring in scholars who had not been incorporating material on the religious and spiritual life into their work," says Elizabeth V. Spelman, a former program scholar who teaches philosophy at Smith College. "It doesn't ask people to simply come and do the work they used to be doing, but to expand their horizons. This program is one of the few places in the academic world where scholars who are established in other fields rethink what they have done when religion is a part of the conversation. They see what happens to their scholarship when it is opened up this way."

Spelman used her time at the Divinity School in 1991-92 to explore questions about suffering. She studied the writings of Harriet Jacobs, an African-American slave who charted the difficult course of appealing to the compassion of Northern white Christian women while refusing to be seen as a victim. Last year Spelman published Fruits of Sorrow: Framing Our Attention to Suffering (Beacon Press).

Phyllis Cole pursued research on 19th-century religious figure Mary Moody Emerson, a liberal Christian, religious mystic, and Ralph Waldo Emerson's aunt. "She was his model of religious independence," says Cole. During her time at Harvard, Cole found in Houghton Library boxes of letters and diaries written by Mary Moody Emerson and discovered that Ralph Waldo Emerson borrowed freely from her ideas. "He is commonly thought of as the founder of transcendentalism, but he came to that through his aunt," Cole says. This year she published Mary Moody Emerson and the Origins of Transcendentalism (Oxford University Press).

For some students, the Women's Studies in Religion Program is what draws them to Harvard. Rochelle Mazar, a first-year master's student at the Divinity School, has already taken two courses from visiting scholars in the program. She hopes to pursue a career as a gender historian.

"It's really a basis for me to learn how to work with gender in an intelligent and useful way," Mazar says. "It's almost like a home base for me." The small classes have given her the opportunity to work closely with the visiting scholars, she adds.

Emily Neill, a doctor of theology student in the Divinity School's religion, gender, and culture program, has taken several classes from visiting scholars. She wishes that there were more permanent faculty devoted to exploring gender and religion. Still, "I think it's a wonderful program. I wholly support it," she says. "It's where I learned feminist methodology in different fields."

Women's roles in ancient Christian asceticism and monasticism, alternative notions of Muslim women in Islam and the Qur'an, gender in Jewish philosophy, and the role of lay women in late medieval parishes were among the topics that this year's scholars pursued.

The Women's Studies in Religion Program also helps to bridge the gap between academia and the broader world. At a meeting in January of the program's national leadership committee, women who are investment bankers, philanthropists, and journalists snapped up copies of visiting scholars' books. They asked pointed questions about each scholar's work as well. "There are very few opportunities for women in the academy and women from business and the professions to meet," says Cole. "I salute this alliance."

"Many of the women on the national leadership committee are drawn to the program because they believe that the stature of Harvard, the recognition at Harvard [of women's studies in religion] indicates that their voices will be heard in whatever pursuit they are involved in," Valenze explains. "The program has a tremendous symbolic role."

"The program gives women scholars and philanthropists an opportunity for collaboration, a chance to work together to preserve women's heritage," adds Bernadette Brooten, PhD '82, professor of Christian studies at Brandeis University and a member of the program's advisory committee.

This spring, Thiemann announced the appointment of Ann D. Braude, associate professor in the department of religious studies at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, as director of the Women's Studies in Religion program and senior lecturer at the Divinity School, effective July 1. She has been a member of the program's advisory committee since 1991 and is the author and editor of a number of books on women's history, religious history, and 19th-century American history, including Radical Spirits: Spiritualism and Women's Rights in Nineteenth-Century America (Beacon Press, 1989).

"Ann Braude brings to this position firsthand experience with the program," said Thiemann. "She has participated in the selection of its research associates; addressed scholars, donors, and foundations on its behalf; and supported its capital campaign. I am delighted that she will be directing the program and joining the Faculty of Divinity."