philosophy – Feminism and Religion

Miriam Is For the Girls by Zoe Carlin

The Book of Exodus is a well-known scripture, and it is one that many Jews, Christians, and even people who are non-religious are very familiar with. Growing up, our family continued to tell this story year after year during Passover. It was one of many classic Torah readings shown to us in our temple. So, one of the key figures in this story is Miriam, Moses’ older sister. Most remember that she helped her mother deliver Moses in secret at the Nile River when he was an infant due to the Pharaoh setting an order to kill every Hebrew son because of concerns of the population growing too much (Exodus 11:5-6). She also assisted in leading the Israelites across the Red Sea when Moses opened it up for the Hebrews to cross (Exodus 14:21-22). An article titled “Miriam: Midrash and Aggadah” shares a deeper analysis of the roles that Miriam upheld as a sister, a daughter, and a woman during this time. It has also informed my understanding of Miriam’s story.

3 Taoist Secrets for Embodying your Life

Taoism is an ancient Chinese philosophy and spiritual tradition that offers a unique perspective on life, existence, and human experience. Where many religious practices aim to transcend and sometimes even punish the body, Taoism cultivates a deep connection with our physical self in ongoing relationship with nature around us.

This resonates with my own experience, in which I see the body as starting point and place of return for everything we do in life. Leaving the body in order to meet spirit or the divine has never made any sense to me.

In this article I’ll highlight a few elements of Taoism as an embodied philosophy, specifically zooming in on principles and practices that promote holistic wellbeing and inner peace.

The Courage to be a Self and a Part by Xochitl Alvizo

I just submitted to the editor the final draft of a chapter I’ve been working on for about two years (no joke). Sometimes when I really care about a subject, it can take me a long time to process, reflect, and write on the subject (I shared a bit about this project on FAR early this year)—but this one might have taken the cake in terms of how slow a process it ended up being. Still, it is now submitted and in the hands of the publishing company, Oxford University Press, for the next step in the process.

This project came about because Meg Stapleton Smith, while she was still a doctoral student working on her Ph.D. and searching the Mary Daly Papers at the archives of Smith College, came across a typed manuscript of a never completed work of Mary Daly’s. The unfinished manuscript, with an introduction and four chapters long, was titled “Catholicism: End or Beginning.” Meg, after discovering the manuscript, took on the task of organizing a group of feminist scholars to read the manuscript and write a chapter in response to be published as an edited collection along with the previously unpublished manuscript. The collection should be coming soon, but here I wanted to share a bit more about my chapter and an overview of what I see as its significance.

Label or Be Labelled Part 3: Toward Embodied Presence

In Part 1 of this series on labelling, I highlighted the difference between naming and labelling, and the search for a personal label as ‘participation ticket’ for life.

In Part 2 on professional and spiritual identity, I looked at what we can learn from the autoethnographic practice of disclosing various selves in research situations. I also discussed the effects of Christianity on the suppression of pagan traditions in northwestern Europe, and nature-based spirituality as part of our generic spiritual DNA.

Today I share a few final reflections including what groups celebrate their differences with ‘prides and games’, and which ones remain invisible? What are the effects of woke ideology on fear of expression and loss of voices, and an invitation for embodied presence as one characteristic of our shared humanity.

Label or Be Labelled Part 2: Professional and spiritual identity

This post continues from Part 1, where I situated this essay as a reflection on Xochitl Alvizo’s article Human, Just Human. There, I questioned the difference between the power of naming versus the pressure to label. I then described my search for a personal identifier as ‘participation ticket’ to life. This feels important nowadays to join the conversation and not be dismissed by default. However, I wondered whether looking for things that set us apart emphasises otherness rather than shared humanity.

Today, I question what can we learn from autoethnography about the many selves we bring to different professional situations and how they might hide more than they reveal. I also describe the challenges of naming nature-based practices in a geographical area where 2000 years of Christianity forced our pagan traditions underground.

Common Ground: Part Two: On Enclosure, the Commons, and Awe by Beth Bartlett

“Can we rise to ourselves and see what is in the nature of the soul to see – that we exist on this common ground together?” – Susan Griffin

The ideology, discussed in Part One, that land that is not being cultivated, mined, lumbered, or otherwise used to create goods and capital is ‘waste” continues its devastating effects to this day in mountaintop removal, destruction of old growth forests, fracking and drilling and mining of once pristine lands, plowing the plains into dust and spreading herbicides and pesticides over the land. Devastate – from the Latin devastare, meaning to “lay waste, ravage, make desolate.” Devastate – to de-vast – is to destroy the vastness. And so has the vastness of lands around the world been plundered, laid waste, so as not to “waste” it.

Common Ground: Part One: On Enclosure, the Commons, and Awe by Beth Bartlett

I spent the first half of my academic career studying and teaching the history of Western political philosophy – the works of Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau to name a few. It gave me the best possible grounding in understanding the foundations of patriarchy. In more recent years, I have used these works to explain the Western paradigm of thought to my ecofeminism students so they could better understand how women, colonized others, and the earth have been defined and dominated based on these assumptions.