Volumne 5 No. 2
Tracking the Activities of Our Participating Scholars
Movers and Shakers
Radhika
Balakrishnan has edited and written the introduction to The Hidden
Assembly Line: Gender Dynamics of Subcontracted Work in a Global
Economy. The book explores how current globalizing economic
trends affect the lives of women workers in Asia, given the growth of
subcontracted labor. Case studies from Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri
Lanka, and India illustrate how work is empowering women, making them
key economic players as the nature of work changes in the global economy.
Mary
Churchill is a fellow this year at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced
Study, Harvard University (formerly known as the Bunting) where
she will present The Paradox of Tradition: Native American Women
and the Legacy of Colonial Violence in May.Mary is on leave from
the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Mary, along with other Consultation scholars, also
served as a panelist in the Women and Religion Section at the annual
conference of the American Academy of Religion. The session was
held on November 17, 2001 in Denver, Colorado. Panelists included Participating
Scholars Sadiyya Shaikh, Christine E.Gudorf, Arvind
Sharma, and Laurie Zoloth. The panel, The Right to Family
Planning, Contraception, and Abortion in World and Indigenous Religions,
was well attended and a lively discussion followed.
Wanda Deifelt, Mary Hunt, Patti Jung, and Judith Plaskow
presented a panel discussion based on the book, Good Sex, at
Harvard Divinity School. The event was co-sponsored by the Women's
Studies in Religion Program, the Initiatives in Religion and Public
Life, and the Office of Ministerial Studies. Wanda Deifelt urrently
holds the Anne Duncan Grey Visiting Professorship at Emmanuel College,
Toronto University.
Marvin
M. Ellison, co-chair of the Maine Interfaith Council for Reproductive
Choices, spoke in mid-June on a Religion Counts panel at the
United Nations/UNICEF conference on the rights of children. The
panel was part of the Third Preparatory Committee for the United Nations
Special Session of the General Assembly on Children.
Farid
Esack has completed his four-year term as Commissioner for Gender
Equality in South Africa. He is currently Visiting Auburn Professor
at Union Theological Seminary and will be at William and Mary
next semester.Farid just completed writing the Introduction to
the Qur'an. (Oneworld, 2002.) He is currently working on two-year
book project, In Search of Progressive Islam.
Deb
Haffner and Rev.Larry Greenfield have formed the Religious
Institute for Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing to promote the
goals and visions of the Religious Declaration on Sexual Morality, Justice,
and Healing. The Institute has a website http://www.religionproject.org/.
Viewers who wish to add their name to those who endorse the Religious
Declaration can do so at the site.
Riffat
Hassan was quoted in Time magazine's December 3, 2001, Special Report
on Muslim Women, entitled, Lifting the Veil.
Mary
Hunt has published two books in Portuguese: The first work, Olhares
feministas sobre a lgreja Catolica, was co-authored with Rene
Van Eyden and Elisabeth S. Fiorenza.Mary is the sole author of the second
work, Sexo bom Sexo justo -catolicismo feminista e direitos humanos.
[Dan Maguire has also co-authored a work in Portuguese: Aborto:
descobrindo as bases ethicas para decidir com liberrdade with
Olinto Pegoraro and Maria Consuelo Mejia.]
Patti
Jung (Loyola University, Chicago), Mary E.Hunt (WATER, Silver
Springs, MD), Wanda Deifelt (Toronto University), and Ayesha
M. Imam (Women Living under Muslim Laws) spoke at Loyola University
of Chicago on their respective chapters in Good Sex and how
their work on the Good Sex Project is shaping their current approaches
to scholarship and activism.
John
Raines will be teaching in the Comparative Religious Studies program
at Indonesia's Gajah Mada University for the next three summer
semesters.He can be reached at j.raine01astro.temple.edu.
Larry Rasmussen and Dieter Hessel co-edited Earth Habitat:
Eco-Injustice and the Church's Response (Fortress Press,
2001). Larry was also cited in an article appearing in the New
York Times Week in Review, Sunday, August 12, 2001, "Ought
We Do What We Can Do?"
Paul Surlis, an emeritus professor of moral theology and social
ethics at St. John's University, New York, has written an article,
"Abortion issue clouds stem-cell discussion,"
which appeared in the National Catholic Reporter (August 24, 2001).
In the article, Paul argues that "strict ethical guidelines can
be put in place regarding the medical use of stem cells. Among these
would be a stipulation that the stem cells be used for alleviating human
suffering in finding cures for debilitating disease, but never to enable
cloning of human or semi-human beings."
One
of our Buddhist scholars, Parichart Suwanbubbha reports that
The Board of Medical Doctors Association in Thailand is proposing a
bill to extend the law on abortion. They would like to consider the
mental health of the mother and the status of the fetus to be additional
reasons to perform legal abortion. There will be a public hearing soon.
Parichart was invited to The National University of Singapore
to present a paper on Religious Education and Gender Issues: A Case
Study of Thai Mae Chees. The meeting, held October 27-28 2001, was
organized by the World Bank and the coordinating partner in Singapore,
the Centre for Research on Islamic and Malay Affairs (RIMA). From the
8th to 11th of November, 2001 Parichart also participated in the opening
ceremony and the international religious conference at The Museum
of World Religions, Taipei, Taiwan.
Liu Xiaogan, who moved to Hong Kong last August, is now a professor
in the Department of Philosophy, at the Chinese University of Hong
Kong. Liu has co-edited Taoism and Ecology, recently published
by the Center for the Study of World Religions of Harvard
University. Liu has also written the foreword to the new edition
ofThe Concept of Man in Early China by Donald Munro and published
by the Center of Chinese Studies, the University ofMichigan. Inspired
by the program of What Men Owe To Women, Liu has published papers
and delivered lectures on gender equality based on Taoist philosophy.