This innovative volume highlights the relevance of globalization and the insights of gender studies and religious studies for feminist theology. Beginning with a discussion of position of the discipline at the turn of the twenty-first century, the handbook seeks to present an inclusive account of feminist theology in the early twenty-first century that acknowledges the reflection of women on religion beyond the global North and its forms of Christianity. Globalization is taken as the central theme, as the foremost characteristic of the context in which we do feminist theology today. The volume traces the impacts of globalization on gender and religion in specific geographical contexts, describing the implications for feminist theological thinking. A final section explores the changing contents of the field, moving towards new models of theology, distinct from both the structure and language of traditional Christian systematic theology and the forms of secular feminism. The handbook draws on material from several religious traditions and every populated continent, with chapters provided by a diverse team of international scholars.

Reading Contemporary African American Literature focuses on the subject of contemporary African American popular fiction by women. Bragg's study addresses why such work should be the subject of scholarly examination, describes the events and attitudes which account for the critical neglect of this body of work, and models a critical approach to such narratives that demonstrates the distinctive ways in which this literature captures the complexities of post-civil rights era black experiences. In making her arguments regarding the value of popular writing, Bragg argues that black women's popular fiction foregrounds gender in ways that are frequently missing from other modes of narrative production. They exhibit a responsiveness and timeliness to the shifting social terrain which is reflected in the rapidly shifting styles and themes which characterize popular fiction. In doing so, they extend the historical function of African American literature by continuing to engage the black body as a symbol of political meaning in the social context of the United States. In popular literature Beauty Bragg locates a space from which black women engage a variety of public discourses.

Every year 5% of all breast cancer diagnosis occur in women under the age of forty. They do not have the time to be sick, stop their lives or even take the time to care for themselves. This book is for them-the women outside the common statistics, like me. Someone who has been rocked by a scary diagnosis but continues to rock-on. Someone who needs to laugh in the face of fear. It is scary-but hey, if I can get through it, anyone can. The one thing I know for sure, laughter heals. I realized long ago, before cancer, that if I didn t laugh, I d cry. I choose to laugh. I hope you do too.

Lindsey Salloway presented her husband, Tosh, with a wonderful gift for their fifth anniversary: two pink lines.. Finally pregnant after months of trying, Lindsey and Tosh were thrilled. The planning started that night-what they would name the baby, how they would decorate the nursery, and when the baby's due date would be. Lindsey and Tosh, like every other pregnant couple, look forward to kissing their tiny baby's face and counting fingers and toes. For Lindsey and Tosh, however, that dream would not come true.

In her poignant memoir, Lindsey shares the story of her journey through three miscarriages in a span of ten months - from the ecstatic moments after she learned she was first pregnant to the heartbreaking instant when she realized she had lost each baby. As she recalls each experience, Lindsey provides a realistic look into the darkness of the pain and suffering as well as the light of hope and healing as she faced the complicated emotions that accompany miscarriage.

"Our Beautiful Babies Dear" shares one woman's story of loss, endurance, and hope as she endures the pain of miscarriage and finds strength in survival.

In all Western societies women earn lower wages on average than men. The gender wage gap has existed for many years, although there have been some important changes over time. This volume of collected papers contains extensive research on progress made by women in the labor market, and the characteristics and causes of remaining gender inequalities. It also covers other dimensions of inequality and their interplay with gender, such as family formation, wellbeing, race, and immigrant status. The author was awarded the 2010 IZA Prize in Labor Economics for this research. Part I comprises an Introduction by the Editors. Part II probes and quantifies the explanations for the gender wage gap, including differential choices made in the labor market by men and women as well as labor market discrimination and employment segregation. It also delineates how the gender wage gap has decreased over time in the United States and suggests explanations for this narrowing of the gap and the more recent slowdown in wage convergence. Part III considers international differences in the gender wage gap and wage inequality and the relationship between the two. Part IV considers a variety of indicators of gender inequality and how they have changed over time in the United States, painting a picture of significant gains in women's relative status across a number of dimensions. It also considers the trends in female labor supply and what they indicate about changing gender roles in the United States and considers a successful intervention designed to increase the relative success of academic women. Part V focuses on inequality by race and immigrant status. It considers not only race difference in wages and the differential progress made by African-American women and men in reducing the race wage gap, but also race differences in wealth which are considerably larger than differences in wages. It also examines immigrant-native differences in the use of transfer payments, and the impact of gender roles in immigrant source countries on immigrant women's labor market assimilation in the U.S. labor market.

Alternative Histories of the Self investigates how people re-imagined the idea of the unique self in the period from 1762 to 1917. Some used the notion of the unique self to justify their gender and sexual transgression, but others rejected the notion of the unique self and instead demanded the sacrifice of the self for the good of society. The substantial introductory chapter places these themes in the cultural context of the long nineteenth century, but the book as a whole represents an alternative method for studying the self. Instead of focusing on the thoughts of great thinkers, this book explores how five unusual individuals twisted conventional ideas of the self as they interpreted their own lives. These subjects include: * The Chevalier/e d'Eon, a renegade diplomat who was outed as a woman * Anne Lister, who wrote coded diaries about her attraction to women * Richard Johnson, who secretly criticized the empire that he served * James Hinton, a Victorian doctor who publicly advocated philanthropy and privately supported polygamy * Edith Ellis, a socialist lesbian who celebrated the 'abnormal' These five case studies are skilfully used to explore how the notion of the unique individual was used to make sense of sexual or gender non-conformity. Yet this queer reading will go beyond same-sex desire to analyse the issue of secrets and privacy; for instance, what stigma did men who practiced or advocated unconventional relationships with women incur? Finally, Clark ties these unusual lives to the wider questions of ethics and social justice: did those who questioned sexual conventions challenge political traditions as well? This is a highly innovative study that will be of interest to intellectual historians of modern Britain and Europe, as well as historians of gender and sexuality.

This book investigates early modern women's interventions in politics and the public sphere during times of civil war in England and France. Taking this transcultural and comparative perspective, and the period designation "early modern" expansively, Antigone's Example identifies a canon of women's civil-war writings; it elucidates their historical specificity as well as the transhistorical context of civil war, a context which, it argues, enabled women's participation in political thought.

Women and Art surveys the history of women in art and addresses the effects of feminist art history and art production. This book is among the first to offer a critical assessment of the role of feminism in art history and how it has presented and misrepresented women's roles in art. Seeking to counterbalance overwhelmingly pro-feminist narratives, it relies on evidence from artists, statisticians, and historians to support individual women artists while remaining critical of feminism. Cogent and persuasive, Women and Art stands as a key for students and researchers interested in art history, gender studies, feminism, and cultural studies.

This is an unrivalled collection of source material on women in the ancient Greek world including literary, rhetorical, philosophical and legal sources, and papyri and inscriptions. The study of women in the ancient Mediterranean world is a topic of growing interest among classicists and ancient historians, and also students of history, sociology and women's studies. This volume is an essential resource supplying a compilation of source material in translation, with contextual commentaries, a glossary of key terms and an annotated bibliography. Texts come from literary, rhetorical, philosophical and legal sources, as well as papyri and inscriptions, and each text will be placed into the cultural mosaic to which it belongs. Ranging geographically from the ancient Near East through Egypt and Greece to Rome and its wider empire, the volume follows a clear chronological structure. Beginning in the eighth century BCE the coverage continues through archaic and Classical Athens, Etruscan Italy and the Roman Republic, concluding with the late Roman Empire and the advent of Christianity. "The Continuum Sources in Ancient History" series presents a definitive collection of source material in translation, combined with expert contextual commentary and annotation to provide a comprehensive survey of each volume's subject. Material is drawn from literary, as well as epigraphic, legal and religious, sources. Aimed primarily at undergraduate students, the series will also be invaluable for researchers, and faculty devising and teaching courses.

A Cultural History of The Human Body presents an authoritative survey from ancient times to the present. This set of six volumes covers 2800 years of the human body as a physical, social, spiritual and cultural object. Volume 1: A Cultural History of the Human Body in Antiquity (750 BCE - 1000 CE) Edited by Daniel Garrison, Northwestern University. Volume 2: A Cultural History of the Human Body in The Medieval Age (500 - 1500) Edited by Linda Kalof, Michigan State University Volume 3: A Cultural History of the Human Body in the Renaissance (1400 - 1650) Edited by Linda Kalof, Michigan State University and William Bynum, University College London. Volume 4: A Cultural History of the Human Body in the Enlightenment (1600 - 1800) Edited by Carole Reeves, Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, University College London. Volume 5: A Cultural History of the Human Body in the Age of Empire (1800 - 1920) Edited by Michael Sappol, National Library of Medicine in Washington, DC, and Stephen P. Rice, Ramapo College of New Jersey. Volume 6: A Cultural History of the Human Body in the Modern Age (1900-21st Century) Edited by Ivan Crozier, University of Edinburgh, and Chiara Beccalossi, University of Queensland. Each volume discusses the same themes in its chapters: 1. Birth and Death 2. Health and Disease 3. Sex and Sexuality 4. Medical Knowledge and Technology 5. Popular Beliefs 6. Beauty and Concepts of the Ideal 7. Marked Bodies I: Gender, Race, Class, Age, Disability and Disease 8. Marked Bodies II: the Bestial, the Divine and the Natural 9. Cultural Representations of the Body 10. The Self and Society This means readers can either have a broad overview of a period by reading a volume or follow a theme through history by reading the relevant chapter in each volume. Superbly illustrated, the full six volume set combines to present the most authoritative and comprehensive survey available on the human body through history.

The evil of female exploitation
Human bondage and the exploitation of the weak, poor and vulnerable is as old as human kind itself. It is such a primal aspect of human nature that there have been long periods of history where it was considered the natural order, and in numerous cultures the members of which could dispassionately view the matter without it ever occurring to them that it might be morally reprehensible. Such is the mobility of morality. That situation, of course, prevailed openly in 'modern' western societies until very recently and certainly abides in the wider world less openly to this day. The traffic in young women to be used as labour slaves and especially those to be forced into prostitution has a history equally as long. Indeed, all know that this exploitation persists to the present time and is seemingly impossible to eradicate as it provides enormous revenue for the unscrupulous and gratification for the irrepressible base instincts of men. This book, written at the turn of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, sought in its day to make the public aware of the practice of 'white slavery' in an attempt to promote its eradication. The circumstances of the victims of times past may have been different in detail to those of today's enslaved, but the common thread of exploitation remains the same. This book is an interesting chronicle on the subject from an historical perspective and will engross all those interested in learning more. It poignantly demonstrates that the practice and the battle against human trafficking has been long established and-though the war proceeds without final victory or the expectation of it-long opposed. Available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket.

"Treasures in the Attic: Gifts from a Woman of Faith "is the true story of author Dell Anne Hines Afzal's grandmother, Lois Annie, and the treasures she left their family. It is documented in memory of her love and strength and shows the trials and tribulations of how she lived her life. It also shows an extremely hard-working, honest, and loving woman who would not allow those heartaches she suffered in her life to limit or taint her examples to her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

Learning of her tragedies and hardships and how she survived them has given Afzal a sense of purpose and a belief that she can do all things through faith and hard work.

Her purpose in sharing her grandmother's life with the reader is to offer comfort and hope to those who are suffering. She offers her prayers and absolute faith in the understanding that whatever pitfalls may be thrown our way, we must never give up and we are not alone.

The treasures found in her attic on the day she moved from her treasured home of over fifty years offer a glimpse of true caring and respect she left for those she loves. The miracle of the recovery of those gifts and a lost member of the family will open your heart and soul to the true miracles of life.