Subjugated Voices and Religion
Edited by
Souad T. Ali [+–]
Arizona State University
Professor Souad T. Ali is head of Classics and Middle Eastern studies, founding chair of the Arizona State University Council for Arabic and Islamic Studies; coordinator of Arabic Studies; associate professor of Arabic literature and Middle Eastern/Islamic studies in the School of International Letters and Cultures (SILC). She is simultaneously an affiliate graduate faculty member in English, women and gender studies, religious studies, and justice and social inquiry; as well as an affiliate faculty member in the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict, African and African-American studies, Center for the Study of Race and Democracy, Institute for Humanities Research, and Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. A scholar with international recognition, Professor Ali is a recipient of several awards including, the ASU Faculty Women’s Association Outstanding Graduate Mentor Award (2017); the ASU Outstanding Advisor of the Year (2019), among others. A Fulbright Scholar, Professor Ali is the author of A Religion, Not A State: Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq’s Islamic Justification of Political Secularism (University of Utah Press 2009), The Road to Two Sudans, an edited volume of which she is the lead editor, has been published internationally by Cambridge Scholars Publishing (2014). Ali’s third book is Perspectives of Five Kuwaiti Women in Leadership Roles: Feminism, Islam and Politics (CSP, 2019). Professor Ali’s impressive scholarship also includes over 30 scholarly articles in several languages, and more than 100 scholarly conference presentations. With degrees from prestigious institutions such as the University of Utah and Brigham Young University, as well as the University of Khartoum and the Polytechnic of North London, Professor Ali brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to her work. She has held several key leadership roles, including serving as the past president of the American Academy of Religion/Western Region (AAR/WR), president of the Sudan(s) Studies Association of North America, and executive committee member of the International Association of Intercultural Studies (IAIS) in Cairo, Egypt and Bremen, Germany.
Emily Leah Silverman [+–]
Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley
Kohenet, Dr. Emily Leah Silverman is a Visiting Scholar at The Graduate Theological Union. Berkeley, CA. She received Smicha (ordination) from the Hebrew Priestess Institute and is recent Past President of American Academy of Religion Western Region. Silverman has developed the field study of Feminist Theology of Spiritual Resistance Her current research is on the Feminist theology of Spiritual Resilience and Resistance of Jewish Women during the Nazi Holocaust. She most recently was an invited lecturer at University of Wales and was formerly a lecturer at San Jose State University and taught at Graduate Theological Union. Dr Silverman also investigates the reclaiming and retrieval of Hebrew Priestess lineage, their 12 spiritual pathways and practice. Dr Silverman was the organizer of Rosemary Radford Ruether Frestschrift and co-edited with Dirk Von der Horst and Whitney Bauman “Voices of Feminist Liberation: Writing in Celebrations of Rosemary Ruether.” Silverman has also published “Edith Stein and Regina Jonas: Religious Visionaries of the Death Camps.” Silverman is a sort after invited speaker who presently teaches at the Aquarian Minyan Yeshiva. She holds an Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School and PhD from the GTU.
This critical and timely volume emerged from a conference on Subjugated Voices and Religion. It brings marginalized voices to the center of religious studies, theological and spirituality discourses. The volume is co-edited by two scholarly friends who are a Jew and a Muslim Feminists. The main thread of the essays are the contextualization of different ways religion plays in subjugated contexts. The articles are an act of resistance. They speak truth to distortions and stereotyping. The act of scholarship and the retrieval of subjugated knowledge is a rebuke to repression. Articles are written by prominent professors such as Rosemary Radford Ruether and emerging scholars in the fields of Religious Studies, Theology, Feminist Theology, Jewish Studies, Holocaust studies, Muslim Studies, Chinese Studies, Latinx Studies, Women and Gender Studies, Women History, Disability Studies, Feminist Studies, Religion and Ecology, Queer Studies, Womanist Studies, and Religion.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Arizona State University
Professor Souad T. Ali is head of Classics and Middle Eastern studies, founding chair of the Arizona State University Council for Arabic and Islamic Studies; coordinator of Arabic Studies; associate professor of Arabic literature and Middle Eastern/Islamic studies in the School of International Letters and Cultures (SILC). She is simultaneously an affiliate graduate faculty member in English, women and gender studies, religious studies, and justice and social inquiry; as well as an affiliate faculty member in the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict, African and African-American studies, Center for the Study of Race and Democracy, Institute for Humanities Research, and Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. A scholar with international recognition, Professor Ali is a recipient of several awards including, the ASU Faculty Women’s Association Outstanding Graduate Mentor Award (2017); the ASU Outstanding Advisor of the Year (2019), among others. A Fulbright Scholar, Professor Ali is the author of A Religion, Not A State: Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq’s Islamic Justification of Political Secularism (University of Utah Press 2009), The Road to Two Sudans, an edited volume of which she is the lead editor, has been published internationally by Cambridge Scholars Publishing (2014). Ali’s third book is Perspectives of Five Kuwaiti Women in Leadership Roles: Feminism, Islam and Politics (CSP, 2019). Professor Ali’s impressive scholarship also includes over 30 scholarly articles in several languages, and more than 100 scholarly conference presentations. With degrees from prestigious institutions such as the University of Utah and Brigham Young University, as well as the University of Khartoum and the Polytechnic of North London, Professor Ali brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to her work. She has held several key leadership roles, including serving as the past president of the American Academy of Religion/Western Region (AAR/WR), president of the Sudan(s) Studies Association of North America, and executive committee member of the International Association of Intercultural Studies (IAIS) in Cairo, Egypt and Bremen, Germany.
Part 1: Feminism, Spirituality, and Connection
California Institute of Integral Studies
Arisika Razak, MPH, is professor emerita and the former Chair of the MA and PhD Women’s Spirituality Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco California, where she also served as Director of Diversity. She is a former President of the American Academy of Religion – Western Region (AAR-WR), and she co-chaired the Womanist-Pan African Section of AAR-WR for five years. For over twenty years, Arisika provided midwifery care primarily to indigent women and women of color in the San Francisco Bay area, sparking her interest in multicultural feminisms, embodied healing methodologies and diverse spiritual traditions. She has led embodied healing and empowerment workshops for over thirty-five years and performed nationally and internationally as a spiritual dancer. Arisika is deeply committed to diversity, inclusion, cultural humility and anti-racist praxis; she has led numerous diversity trainings and served as a facilitator for groups in conflict. A presenter at the historic “The Gathering II,” a historic celebration of seventy-five Buddhist teachers of Black African descent, and the (virtual) Black and Buddhist Summit, Arisika is a regular contributor to books and journals, writing on the subject of womanism, African-Diasporic spiritual traditions, Buddhism and Blackness, and embodied healing traditions. She currently serves as a core teacher at the
East Bay Meditation Center where her teachings incorporate diverse spiritual traditions,
movement, and contemporary diversity theory. Her film credits include: Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth by Pratibha Parmar; Fire Eyes, by Soraya Mire, the first full length feature film by an African woman on the issue of female genital cutting; and Who Lives, Who Dies? a PBS production on the provision of health care provided to underserved and marginalized communities in the USA.
East Bay Meditation Center where her teachings incorporate diverse spiritual traditions,
movement, and contemporary diversity theory. Her film credits include: Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth by Pratibha Parmar; Fire Eyes, by Soraya Mire, the first full length feature film by an African woman on the issue of female genital cutting; and Who Lives, Who Dies? a PBS production on the provision of health care provided to underserved and marginalized communities in the USA.
In her essay, “The Divine Feminist: A Diversity of Perspectives Which Honor Our Mothers’ Gardens by Integrating Spirituality and Social Justice,” Arisika Razak discusses the important, yet often overlooked, intersection between spirituality and social justice. She starts her essay by discussing Western society’s depiction of the “divine feminine,” an idealized goddess woman who is not representative of every woman as society depicts her using unachievable beauty standards and abilities. Instead, Razak advocates for the “divine feminist,” calling on the reader to recognize the divinity of every woman in every feminist. This divine feminist accepts, acknowledges, and integrates secular feminism, religious studies, and ethnic/indigenous studies. To elaborate on the concept of the divine feminist, Razak draws on artists, activists, teachers, and scholars, some widely known and some unknown, from the African, Native, Queer, Latinx, and Islamic communities. For the divine feminist, drawing on spirituality and secularism when pursuing social justice is empowering.
Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley
Kohenet, Dr. Emily Leah Silverman is a Visiting Scholar at The Graduate Theological Union. Berkeley, CA. She received Smicha (ordination) from the Hebrew Priestess Institute and is recent Past President of American Academy of Religion Western Region. Silverman has developed the field study of Feminist Theology of Spiritual Resistance Her current research is on the Feminist theology of Spiritual Resilience and Resistance of Jewish Women during the Nazi Holocaust. She most recently was an invited lecturer at University of Wales and was formerly a lecturer at San Jose State University and taught at Graduate Theological Union. Dr Silverman also investigates the reclaiming and retrieval of Hebrew Priestess lineage, their 12 spiritual pathways and practice. Dr Silverman was the organizer of Rosemary Radford Ruether Frestschrift and co-edited with Dirk Von der Horst and Whitney Bauman “Voices of Feminist Liberation: Writing in Celebrations of Rosemary Ruether.” Silverman has also published “Edith Stein and Regina Jonas: Religious Visionaries of the Death Camps.” Silverman is a sort after invited speaker who presently teaches at the Aquarian Minyan Yeshiva. She holds an Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School and PhD from the GTU.
Emily Leah Silverman’s “Shekhinah: Transgendered or Transvestite? A comparison of the Zohar and Sha’are Orah,” examines the views of Shekhinah from two thirteenth-century kabbalistic texts, the Zohar (Book of Splendor) and Sha’are Orah (Gates of Lights). Shekhinah, also known as Malchut (kingdom), is an attribute of God and is considered to be the feminine sphere or the feminine face of God. While interest in her has grown amongst Jewish feminists, further analysis of a scholarly nature is lacking. Silverman examines if it is possible to redeem Shekhinah from the texts and investigates if kabbalistic sources are valid for Jewish feminist theologies. The focus of Emily’s discussion is how each text portrays Shekhinah’s mutable gender qualities. In this preliminary investigation of a complex subject, Silverman examines the verbs and some of the symbols that each text uses to describe Shekhinah’s channeling and changing nature.
Arizona State University
Professor Souad T. Ali is head of Classics and Middle Eastern studies, founding chair of the Arizona State University Council for Arabic and Islamic Studies; coordinator of Arabic Studies; associate professor of Arabic literature and Middle Eastern/Islamic studies in the School of International Letters and Cultures (SILC). She is simultaneously an affiliate graduate faculty member in English, women and gender studies, religious studies, and justice and social inquiry; as well as an affiliate faculty member in the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict, African and African-American studies, Center for the Study of Race and Democracy, Institute for Humanities Research, and Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. A scholar with international recognition, Professor Ali is a recipient of several awards including, the ASU Faculty Women’s Association Outstanding Graduate Mentor Award (2017); the ASU Outstanding Advisor of the Year (2019), among others. A Fulbright Scholar, Professor Ali is the author of A Religion, Not A State: Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq’s Islamic Justification of Political Secularism (University of Utah Press 2009), The Road to Two Sudans, an edited volume of which she is the lead editor, has been published internationally by Cambridge Scholars Publishing (2014). Ali’s third book is Perspectives of Five Kuwaiti Women in Leadership Roles: Feminism, Islam and Politics (CSP, 2019). Professor Ali’s impressive scholarship also includes over 30 scholarly articles in several languages, and more than 100 scholarly conference presentations. With degrees from prestigious institutions such as the University of Utah and Brigham Young University, as well as the University of Khartoum and the Polytechnic of North London, Professor Ali brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to her work. She has held several key leadership roles, including serving as the past president of the American Academy of Religion/Western Region (AAR/WR), president of the Sudan(s) Studies Association of North America, and executive committee member of the International Association of Intercultural Studies (IAIS) in Cairo, Egypt and Bremen, Germany.
Souad T. Ali’s “Aspects of Old and New Approaches to Feminism in Islam: A Focus on the Middle East” identifies and discusses what she posits as three significant approaches to feminism within Middle Eastern societies with a particular focus on Egypt. There have been several reactions to feminism in the region. Some argue that feminism in Egypt emerged as a response to the British occupation in 1882 and feminist movements in the country date back to the 1890s, thus establishing feminism as a traditionally Arab concept. Others argue that the word feminism should not be used at all. Similarly, women differ in how they view the Arab world’s interaction with “Western” feminism. These arguments have evolved throughout time, leading to three major groups of feminist thought in the Middle East: Islamic feminism, secular feminism, and Islamist feminism. One common theme found throughout the groups is that female subjugation is not inherent in the Qur’an. That being said, each group differs on where they believe patriarchal tendencies come from. This chapter examines each argument and discusses the merits and criticisms relating to each school of thought, effectively analyzing old and new approaches to feminist issues in Egypt within the context of the Middle East.
University of San Francisco
Kimberly Carfore teaches in both the Environmental Studies and Theology and Religious
Studies Departments at the University of San Francisco. She received her PhD in Philosophy and Religion with a focus on Ecology. She is on the Advisory Board at the Forum of Religion and Ecology at Yale for ecojustice and ecofeminism. Dr. Carfore is co-chair of the Religion and Ecology Unit of the American Academy of Religion.
Studies Departments at the University of San Francisco. She received her PhD in Philosophy and Religion with a focus on Ecology. She is on the Advisory Board at the Forum of Religion and Ecology at Yale for ecojustice and ecofeminism. Dr. Carfore is co-chair of the Religion and Ecology Unit of the American Academy of Religion.
Kimberly Carfore’s chapter is entitled “Of Strange Strangers: Interconnected Others in Religion & Ecology.” While many theorists have done much to represent the voices of subjugated others (gendered, post-colonial, racial, and ethnic otherness), in this piece Carfore extends these theories of alterity by applying them to the field of religion and ecology. While an ethics of alterity can be inclusive to humans, she offers nuance and complexities involved when developing a non-anthropocentric ethics of alterity. Building off insights from ecophilosophy (Timothy Morton), ecofeminism (Val Plumwood and Karen Warren), eco-phenomenology (Ed Casey), and eco-deconstruction (Jacques Derrida), Carfore’s contributions highlight religious dimensions of the ethics of Earth Others.
Part 2: Centering Marginalized Voices
Arizona State University
Professor Souad T. Ali is head of Classics and Middle Eastern studies, founding chair of the Arizona State University Council for Arabic and Islamic Studies; coordinator of Arabic Studies; associate professor of Arabic literature and Middle Eastern/Islamic studies in the School of International Letters and Cultures (SILC). She is simultaneously an affiliate graduate faculty member in English, women and gender studies, religious studies, and justice and social inquiry; as well as an affiliate faculty member in the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict, African and African-American studies, Center for the Study of Race and Democracy, Institute for Humanities Research, and Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. A scholar with international recognition, Professor Ali is a recipient of several awards including, the ASU Faculty Women’s Association Outstanding Graduate Mentor Award (2017); the ASU Outstanding Advisor of the Year (2019), among others. A Fulbright Scholar, Professor Ali is the author of A Religion, Not A State: Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq’s Islamic Justification of Political Secularism (University of Utah Press 2009), The Road to Two Sudans, an edited volume of which she is the lead editor, has been published internationally by Cambridge Scholars Publishing (2014). Ali’s third book is Perspectives of Five Kuwaiti Women in Leadership Roles: Feminism, Islam and Politics (CSP, 2019). Professor Ali’s impressive scholarship also includes over 30 scholarly articles in several languages, and more than 100 scholarly conference presentations. With degrees from prestigious institutions such as the University of Utah and Brigham Young University, as well as the University of Khartoum and the Polytechnic of North London, Professor Ali brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to her work. She has held several key leadership roles, including serving as the past president of the American Academy of Religion/Western Region (AAR/WR), president of the Sudan(s) Studies Association of North America, and executive committee member of the International Association of Intercultural Studies (IAIS) in Cairo, Egypt and Bremen, Germany.
In Souad T. Ali’s second chapter, “Sufism, the Shatahat, and a New Examination of Al Ghazali’s writings,” she delves into al-Ghazali’s contributions to Sufi literature. Focusing on al Ghazali’s discussions regarding the Sufi understanding of union with God and the temporary state of intoxication experienced by Sufis, this chapter contends that al-Ghazali’s body of work sought to right many of the injustices levied against other Sufi scholars. This paper argues that al-Ghazali provides vital insight into re-examining the violence committed against such Sufi figures as Mansur Ibn al-Hallaj (d. 922) and Bayazid Bistami (d. 874). Using historical and textual analysis, this study elucidates that, contrary to widely held beliefs that al-Ghazali “rejected” the Shatahat, or intoxicated utterances of these classical Sufis; conversely, he provided justification that what they said was not what was perceived, and that the speech of God’s lovers should not to be revealed but concealed and “not spread out.” Furthermore, this chapter examines the legacy of al-Ghazali as evidenced through the extensive literature written about him in the last century.
6. Surprise! Four Jewish Philosophers’ Views of the ‘Other’: Rosenzweig, Buber, Levinas and Arendt [+–]
Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley
Kohenet, Dr. Emily Leah Silverman is a Visiting Scholar at The Graduate Theological Union. Berkeley, CA. She received Smicha (ordination) from the Hebrew Priestess Institute and is recent Past President of American Academy of Religion Western Region. Silverman has developed the field study of Feminist Theology of Spiritual Resistance Her current research is on the Feminist theology of Spiritual Resilience and Resistance of Jewish Women during the Nazi Holocaust. She most recently was an invited lecturer at University of Wales and was formerly a lecturer at San Jose State University and taught at Graduate Theological Union. Dr Silverman also investigates the reclaiming and retrieval of Hebrew Priestess lineage, their 12 spiritual pathways and practice. Dr Silverman was the organizer of Rosemary Radford Ruether Frestschrift and co-edited with Dirk Von der Horst and Whitney Bauman “Voices of Feminist Liberation: Writing in Celebrations of Rosemary Ruether.” Silverman has also published “Edith Stein and Regina Jonas: Religious Visionaries of the Death Camps.” Silverman is a sort after invited speaker who presently teaches at the Aquarian Minyan Yeshiva. She holds an Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School and PhD from the GTU.
In Emily Leah Silverman’s second chapter, “Surprise! Four Jewish Thinkers’ Views of the ‘Other,’” she contends that Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, Emmanuel Levinas, and Hannah Arendt all describe the moment of surprise when one is truly present with and encounters the Other. The major ideas of these Jewish philosophers took shape during the darkest times of the twentieth century with the principal texts of Rosenzweig and Buber emerging in response to World War I and those of Levinas and Arendt to World War II. In this light, we can appreciate poet Karl Wolfskehl’s description of his encounter with a paralyzed, disease-stricken Franz Rosenzweig. The poet’s encounter with Rosenzweig was nothing like what he had imagined. It was a type of “surprise,” which is the primary concept to be examined in this essay. The life narratives of all four philosophers had an impact on how they approached and recognized the Other and realized this moment. Each describes the encounter from a different perspective, which can be demarcated by a notion of time and a structure of language. Yet, they are getting at the same paradoxical moment of experiencing and living in the present, the only moment in which we can truly engage with the Other. This paper chronologically analyzes these four philosophers’ views of the Other and how they all lead to a sense of wonder and surprise.
California State University, Los Angeles
Theresa A. Yugar is a Peruvian American theologian whose scholarly focus is on women,
ecology, and climate change on a global level. She currently teaches at California State
University, Los Angeles in the Chicana/o & Latina/o Studies Department. She is a graduate of Harvard University with a master’s degree in Feminist Theology and has a PhD from Claremont Graduate University in the field of Women Studies in Religion. Yugar is the chief editor for the book, Valuing Lives, Healing Earth: Religion, Gender, and Life on Earth (2021) and the author of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Feminist Reconstruction of Biography and Text (2014). She is also the scriptwriter for the TED-Ed Lessons Worth Sharing, “History’s Worst Nun,” which has been viewed nine million plus times since its publication in November 2019.
ecology, and climate change on a global level. She currently teaches at California State
University, Los Angeles in the Chicana/o & Latina/o Studies Department. She is a graduate of Harvard University with a master’s degree in Feminist Theology and has a PhD from Claremont Graduate University in the field of Women Studies in Religion. Yugar is the chief editor for the book, Valuing Lives, Healing Earth: Religion, Gender, and Life on Earth (2021) and the author of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Feminist Reconstruction of Biography and Text (2014). She is also the scriptwriter for the TED-Ed Lessons Worth Sharing, “History’s Worst Nun,” which has been viewed nine million plus times since its publication in November 2019.
Theresa A. Yugar’s chapter, “Sor Juana Inés de La Cruz: Frontera-Crosser in New Spain” explores Mexican Catholic nun, writer, prolific poet and border-crosser. In her era, she crosses over social and ideological borders prescribed for women, and in the process expands them. Sor Juana Inés is also a frontera-crosser. Although the terms “border” and frontera can be interchangeably translated as a physical boundary, the Spanish term frontera is distinctive so that it can also be metaphorically understood as where a person is on the threshold of discovery. While Sor Juana Inés wrote in the seventeenth century, her insights from her frontera heritage, diverse knowledge of languages and cultures, as shown in her writings, lay the foundation for a greater understanding of diverse peoples, places, cultures, religions, and wisdom. This essay will demonstrate the ways that Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz crossed borders/fronteras for women, and the Indigenous people in her region, in her primary texts, La Respuesta/The Answer and El Primero Sueño/The First Dream.
Rosemary Radford Ruether was a pioneering feminist theologian who received her doctorate in classics and patristics from Claremont School of Theology in 1965. Her illustrious career included positions at Howard University and several visiting lectureships including at Harvard Divinity School and Princeton Theological Seminary. Ruether spent almost 30 years as the Georgia Harkness Professor of Applied Theology at the Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. After retiring from there she became the Carpenter Professor of Feminist Theology at the Pacific School of Religion and Graduate Theological Union. She was also the recipient of fourteen honorary doctorate degrees from esteemed institutions all over the world. Ruether authored or edited dozens of books, including Sexism and God Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology (1983) as well as hundreds of articles and chapters. She passed away in 2022 at the age of 85. Rosemary Radford Ruether is remembered as a scholar-activist committed to civil rights and ecofeminism with a passion for anti-racism, battling poverty, and advocating for progressive values and liberation in the Catholic Church.
Rosemary Radford Ruether’s plenary address for the 2014 American Academy of Religion Western Region is entitled “Religion, Values, and the Claims of Value Free Education: An Examination of My Teaching and Publications over Fifty Years.” Ruether seeks to examine the relationship between the role of values in education, especially religious studies, and in particular the objective of value-free education. This leads to a retrospective of Ruether’s teaching, research, and writing over a career spanning more than fifty years. Through these academic pursuits, she sought to locate women’s voices in religious movements throughout history. Ruether notes that her interests have always been driven by her values and that this relationship serves the goal of addressing the injustices of the erasure of women’s contributions and perspectives.
Part 3: Solidarity and Activism
Pacific Lutheran University and Santa Clara University
Sarah E. Robinson, also Robinson-Bertoni, is a scholar of religion, ethics, environment, and food. She researches sustainable agriculture in religious contexts. She has served as a professor for over six years at Pacific Lutheran University, Santa Clara University, and Dominican University of CA, teaching courses in environmental studies, first-year writing, women’s and gender studies, and religion. Robinson serves in the Steering Committee for the Religion and Food unit of the American Academy of Religion. She serves also as a Board Member-at-Large for the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture. For the American Academy of Religion, Western Region, she has been conference manager, Women’s Caucus liaison to the Board, Regional Student Director to the national-level Student Committee, and unit chair for Ecology and Religion, Graduate Student Professional Development, and Women and Religion. Her writing appears in the Springer Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics; Columbia University Press’ Religion, Food, and Eating in North America; Oxford University Press’ Flourishing: Comparative Religious Environmental Ethics; Routledge’s Key Thinkers on the Environment; and the journal Religions and the Journal of Feminist Theology. She co-edited the 2021 volume Valuing Lives, Healing Earth: Religion, Gender, and Life on Earth, highlighting global women striving for community health and religious integrity in justice seeking ways. She continues to research, write, present, and publish, while focusing on work as Advocacy Manager for Earth Ministry/Washington Interfaith Power and Light.
Sarah E. Robinson’s essay, “Intersectionality, Solidarity, and Ultimately Flourishing,” describes the importance of intersectionality and solidarity. She writes about these subjects in the context of her academic background in religious studies, and the current political climate since the 2016 Presidential election in the United States. Robinson draws upon Kimberlé Crenshaw’s original definition of intersectionality, stating that race, religion, gender, class, sexuality, and age cannot be considered separately when examining social issues. Academics should dissect the socialized nature of many of these categories and how they function within society’s power structures to better their research and communities. Solidarity, Robinson describes, is as crucial as intersectionality because solidarity provides voices to the voiceless. It is the obligation of those with privilege to support movements for liberation from oppression. Using the example of Rosemary Radford Ruether, a theologian and prominent figure in religious studies during the late 20th and early 21st century, Robinson highlights the need for the privileged to directly engage with the oppressed to gain perspective and increase the impact and effectiveness of their activism. By combining intersectionality and solidarity, individuals and communities will flourish.
California State University Northridge and University of California Irvine
Marie Cartier has a PhD in Religion with an emphasis on Women and Religion from Claremont Graduate University. She is the author of the critically acclaimed book Baby, You Are My Religion: Women, Gay Bars, and Theology Before Stonewall (Routledge 2013). She is a senior lecturer in Gender and Women’s Studies and Queer Studies at California State University Northridge, and in Film Studies at University of California Irvine.
She is also a published poet and playwright, accomplished performance artist, scholar, and social change activist. Cartier holds a BA in Communications from the University of New Hampshire; an MA. in English/Poetry from Colorado State University; an MFA in Theatre Arts (Playwriting) and an MFA in Film and TV (Screenwriting), both from UCLA; and an MFA in Visual Art (Painting/Sculpture) from Claremont Graduate University. She is co-chair of the Lesbian-Feminisms and Religion session of the national American Academy of Religion and cochair at the regional level of the Queer Studies in Religion session, founder of the western region’s Queer Caucus, and a perma-blogger for Feminism and Religion. She is also a first degree black belt in karate, Shorin-Ryu Shi-Do-Kan Kobayashi style, and a 500-hour Yoga Alliance certified Hatha Yoga teacher.
She is also a published poet and playwright, accomplished performance artist, scholar, and social change activist. Cartier holds a BA in Communications from the University of New Hampshire; an MA. in English/Poetry from Colorado State University; an MFA in Theatre Arts (Playwriting) and an MFA in Film and TV (Screenwriting), both from UCLA; and an MFA in Visual Art (Painting/Sculpture) from Claremont Graduate University. She is co-chair of the Lesbian-Feminisms and Religion session of the national American Academy of Religion and cochair at the regional level of the Queer Studies in Religion session, founder of the western region’s Queer Caucus, and a perma-blogger for Feminism and Religion. She is also a first degree black belt in karate, Shorin-Ryu Shi-Do-Kan Kobayashi style, and a 500-hour Yoga Alliance certified Hatha Yoga teacher.
Marie Cartier’s chapter, “#OrlandoStrong: Yes, Baby, the Gay Bar is Still Our Church—Still Our Religion,” is a memorial to the members of the LGBTQ+ community who were tragically murdered in a gun massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida in 2016. Social media platforms enabled a rapid response with memorials and vigils held nationwide. The massacre underscored the significance of gay bars as sanctuaries for the LGBTQ+ community. Cartier further describes gay bars as sacred spaces, indeed the first spaces historically to offer solidarity, empowerment, and self-discovery to LGTBQ+ people. In remembering the forty-nine victims of the Pulse nightclub massacre, Cartier highlights the ongoing struggle for acceptance and the vital role these spaces play in the lives of queer individuals. This chapter celebrates the place gay bars hold in LGBTQ+ history, the author’s personal experiences, and the vital role they continue to play for so many.
Ibrahim Abdurrahman Farajajé was a scholar, activist, queer theologian, artist, and Sufi
spiritual leader. He received his bachelor’s degree in religion at Vassar and went on to earn an M.Div. from St. Vladimir’s Eastern Orthodox Seminary in New York. Following this, Farajajé, then known as Elias Farajajé-Jones, earned his doctorate in theology from the University of Bern in Switzerland. Throughout his life, Farajajé was a prominent HIV/AIDS activist. Among his notable work, Farajajé published In Search of Zion: The Spiritual Significance of Africa in Black Religious Movements in 1990. He taught for ten years at Howard University School of Divinity and then joined the Starr King School for the Ministry where he remained for twenty-one years. He was fondly known as “Ibrahim Baba” and was the provost and a professor cultural and Islamic Studies when he passed away in 2016.
spiritual leader. He received his bachelor’s degree in religion at Vassar and went on to earn an M.Div. from St. Vladimir’s Eastern Orthodox Seminary in New York. Following this, Farajajé, then known as Elias Farajajé-Jones, earned his doctorate in theology from the University of Bern in Switzerland. Throughout his life, Farajajé was a prominent HIV/AIDS activist. Among his notable work, Farajajé published In Search of Zion: The Spiritual Significance of Africa in Black Religious Movements in 1990. He taught for ten years at Howard University School of Divinity and then joined the Starr King School for the Ministry where he remained for twenty-one years. He was fondly known as “Ibrahim Baba” and was the provost and a professor cultural and Islamic Studies when he passed away in 2016.
The late Ibrahim Abdurrahman Farajajé’s was a guerilla scholar; he viewed social media as a forum for subaltern voices to use to express themselves. His chapter is composed of two pieces: “Bodies of Evidence,” an address for the 1998 AIDS and Religion in America Conference held in Atlanta, and an essay written for social media entitled “Why Thanxgrieving?” In the first, Farajajé introduces the terms HIV the@logies, innovative theologies derived from experiences and movements that seek to address and serve those with HIV in ways that traditional theology has fallen short, and HIV-in-intersection, which encourages people to acknowledge the intersecting issues and oppressions that are part of the HIV/AIDS crisis in an effort to liberate the self. The second piece, “Why Thanxgrieving?,” dedicated to the late Jon Paul Hammond, shares the origin story of a yearly celebration within Farajajé’s circle meant to take the place of traditional Thanksgiving and the historical baggage that accompanies that holiday. These writings continue Farajajé’s legacy of love, solidarity, and resistance.
12. Moayyad [+–]
Shiraz Abdullahi Gallab is a designer, educator, and publisher who was born but not raised in Khartoum, Sudan. She is interested in language, form, and specificity, alongside media, Black studies, and popular culture. Shiraz holds a BA in Public Policy Studies from the University of Chicago and an MFA in 2D Design from Cranbrook Academy of Art. She has taught and lectured at California College of the Arts, Virginia Commonwealth University, Yale School of Art, Purchase College, Otis College of Art and Design, Rhode Island School of Design, Rutgers University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her work has been featured in IDEA Magazine, Amalgam, Spine Magazine, and AIGA Eye on Design, and in 2022, she contributed an essay to Geoff Kaplan’s After the Bauhaus, Before the Internet: A History of Graphic Design Pedagogy. Shiraz is a book design and production specialist at the University of Michigan Press, where she designs books on subjects that include political science, music and performance, disability studies, sexuality studies, and poetry.
A brief but poignant reflection from Shiraz Abdullahi Gallab entitled “Moayyad” which memorializes her late cousin who tragically died on the Sudanese-Egyptian border in the midst of the current conflict in Sudan.
