To mark this year’s International Women’s Day, Religious Studies academics have put together a list of inspirational women that you need to know about!<\/p>\n
Dr Chris Deacy<\/a> chose George Eliot (1819-1880) as his inspirational figure for International Women’s Day. In her day, Mary Ann Evans had to use a pseudonym in order to stand a chance of getting her books published, and\u00a0she isn’t just an outstanding English novelist! From a Religious Studies perspective, \u00a0she made a key contribution to debates in the 19th century regarding moral problems with traditional religious thinking, including substitionary atonement and Hell.<\/p>\n Professor Jeremy Carrette<\/a>\u2019s International Women’s Day spotlight is Grace Jantzen (1948-2006) a pioneer in the feminist philosophy of religion. Originally from Canada, most of her career was spent in the UK, with posts at King\u2019s College, London & the University of Manchester.\u00a0Her published works began by examining embodiment and transcendence in God\u2019s World, God\u2019s Body <\/em>(1984) and was followed by studies on mystical experience, with Julian of Norwich<\/em> (1987) and her ground-breaking work Power, Gender and Christian Mysticism<\/em> (1995).<\/p>\n She showed that who counts as a mystic is a gendered question. In her next work, Becoming Divine: Towards A Feminist Philosophy of Religion<\/em> (1998), she engaged French feminist thinking to challenge the Western philosophical focus on death\u00a0by introducing the concepts of natality and birth as new foundations for philosophy. This provided the basis of her three-volume study Death and the Displacement of Beauty (2004, 2009, 2010), developing a philosophy of beauty.<\/p>\n Nicole Graham<\/a> highlights the influence of bell hooks on her teaching, research & journey to feminism: hooks lays the groundwork for feminist theory and opens up your mind to realities & possibilities – she has certainly challenged the lens with which I view the world!.<\/p>\n Keep an eye out on our Facebook<\/a> and Twitter<\/a> for more content!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"