Religion, the Secular, and the Politics of Sexual Difference
Edited by Tracy Fessenden and Linell E. Cady
Global struggles over women's roles, rights and dress increasingly cast the secular and the religious in tense if not violent opposition. When advocates for equality speak in terms of rights and modern progress, or reactionaries ground their authority in religious and scriptural appeals, both tend to presume women's emancipation is ineluctably tied to secularization. "Religion, the Secular, and the Politics of Sexual Difference" upsets this certainty by drawing on diverse voices and traditions in studies that historicize, question and test the implicit links between secularism and expanded freedoms for women. Rather than position secularism as the answer to conflicts over gender and sexuality, this volume shows both religion and the secular collaborate in creating the conditions that generate them.
Bios
Linell E. Cady is professor of religious studies and founding director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict at Arizona State University.
Tracy Fessenden is professor of religious studies and interim director of the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies at Arizona State University.
Praise for this book
This exciting volume defamiliarizes our understanding of secularization as process and practice. The contributors raise profound questions regarding the persistence of 'the religious' as a form of ethicality, as a resistant presence and practice, and as an animating constraint in women's lives. The theoretical range and global scope of the volume is a remarkable achievement.
Anupama Rao Barnard College
"Rather than taking what is often viewed as the high road of secularism, the contributors challenge the ability of both religion and secularism to provide master narratives for the equality of women. This book is a vital contribution to the new feminism that is currently emerging at local, national, and global levels. It opens space for new collaborations and theoretical innovations and encourages us to 'imagine differently.'"
Lori G. Beaman University of Ottawa
