Table Of ContentFeminist New Testament Studies
RELIGION/CULTURE/CRITIQUE
Series editor: Elizabeth A. Castelli
How Hysterical: Identification and Resistance in the Bible and Film
By Erin Runions
(2003)
Connected Places: Region, Pilgrimage, and Geographical Imagination in India
Anne Feldhaus
(2003)
Representing Religion in World Cinema: Filmmaking, Mythmaking, Culture Making
Edited by S. Brent Plate
(2003)
Derrida's Bible (Reading a Page ofS cripture with a Little Help from Derrida)
Yvonne Sherwood
(2004)
FEMINIST NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES
GLOBAL AND FUTURE PERSPECTIVES
Edited by
KATHLEEN O'BRIEN WICKER,
ALTHEA SPENCER MILLER,
AND
MUSA W. DUBE
Palgrave
macmillan
* FEMINIST NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES
© Kathleen O'Brien Wicker, Musa W. Dube, and Althea Spencer Miller, 2005.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 2005 978-1-4039-6870-8
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
First published in 2005 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLANTM
175 Fifth Avenue, NewYorl<, N.Y. 10010 and
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS
Companies and representatives throughout the world.
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave
Macmillan division of st. Martin's Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd.
Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom
and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European
Union and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-4039-6871-5 ISBN 978-1-137-11204-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-137-11204-0
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Feminist New Testament studies: global and future perspectives / edited by
Kathleen O'Brien Wicker, Musa W. Dube, Althea Spencer Miller.
p. cm.-(Religion/culture/critique)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Bible. N.T.-Feminist criticism-Congresses. 2. Globalization-Religious
aspects-Christianity-Congresses. 3. Globalization-Social aspects-Congresses.
I. Wicker, Kathleen O'Brien. II. Dube Shomanah, Musa W., 1964-111. Spencer Miller,
Althea, 1955-IV. Series.
BS2379.F462005
225.6'082---dc22 2005043176
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: November 2005
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Dedicated to
Mary Wig Johnson
(1913-2003)
Scripps College Alumna and Trustee
and
The Women and The Community of Scripps College
Contents
Series Editor's Foreword lX
Foreword Xl
Preface and Acknowledgments X111
List ofC ontributors xv
Introduction 1.
Kathleen O'Brien Wicker
1. Feminist Pedagogies: Implications of a Liberative Praxis 17
Althea Spencer Miller
Conversation One: Europe and North America 41
2. The Power of the Word: Charting Critical Global Feminist
Biblical Studies 43
Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza
3. Globalization, Transnational Feminisms, and the Future of
Biblical Critique 63
Elizabeth A. Castelli
4. Response: Globalization, Transnational Feminisms, and
the Future of Biblical Critique 79
Sheila Briggs
5. The Challenge of "Blackness" for Rearticulating the Meaning of
Global Feminist New Testament Interpretation 85
Gay L. Byron
6. Response: Paradoxes of Positionality as the Key to Feminist
New Testament Studies 103
Karen Jo Torjesen
7. Reflections on Conversation One 109
Sonya Gravlee, Erin Jacklin, and Prinny Stephens
viii CONTENTS
Conversation Two: Asia and Latin America 113
8. My Journey as a Latin American Feminist New Testament
Scholar 115
Aida Besanron Spencer
9. Response: A Framework Toward Solidarity and Justice 131
Elizabeth Conde-Frazier
10. Biblical Studies in the Twenty-First Century: A Japanese/Asian
Feminist Glimpse 137
Hisako Kinukawa
11. Response: An Asian Buddhist Response to a Japanese Feminist
Glimpse of Biblical Studies in the Twenty-First Century 151
Zhiru
12. Feminist Theologies in Latin America 159
Rosemary Radford Ruether
13. Reflections on Conversation Two 171
Holly Hight and Lydia Sohn
Conversation Three: Mrica and the Diaspora 175
14. Rahab is Hanging Out a Red Ribbon: One Mrican Woman's
Perspective on the Future of Feminist New Testament Scholarship 177
MusaW. Dube
15. Response: A Perilous Passage From Scarlet Cord to Red Ribbon 203
Isabel Balseiro
16. Lucy Bailey Meets the Feminists 209
Althea Spencer Miller
17. Response: Lucy Bailey, "Likkle but Tallawah" 239
Lincoln E. Galloway
18. SignifYing on Scriptures: An Mrican Diaspora Proposal for Radical
Readings 245
Vincent L. Wimbush
19. Reflections on Conversation Three 259
Noelle Champagne, Filiberto Nolasco Gomez, and Katrina Vtm Heest
Index of Proper Names 264
Index ofA ncient Sources 267
Series Editor's Foreword
RELIGION/CULTURE/CRITIQUE is a series devoted to publishing work that addresses
religion's centrality in a wide range of settings and debates, both contemporary and
historical, and that critically engages the category of "religion" itself. This series is
conceived as a place where readers will be invited to explore how "religion" -whether
embodied in texts, practices, communities, and ideologies-intersects with social and
political interests, institutions, and identities.
The study of scriptures has long been central to the academic study of religion.
Feminist New Testament Studies: Global and Future Perspectives invites its readers to
undertake a political remapping of this enterprise both in light of more than a gener
ation of critical feminist engagement with scriptural interpretation and in response to
many postcolonial challenges to the historical construction of Christianity as prima
rily a European and North American phenomenon. This volume maps a counterin
tuitive terrain and records an array of feminist voices from around the globe, opening
up a new critical geography for the study of the religious texts of the Christian tradi
tion. The contributors to this volume struggle with the ambivalent implications of
globalism and globalization. They explore the tensions embedded in the notion of
"scripture" itself, a notion that is as tied up with questions of canon, authority, nor
mativity, and constraint as it is with practices of critical rereading, productive and
countercultural resistance, and liberation. The contributors to this volume do not
ask, "What does scripture mean?" but rather, "How does scripture work in the serv
ice of various political, social, and theological ends?" Writing from a range of subject
positions and social locations, the scholars whose work appears in this collection raise
a substantive challenge to the field of the academic study of religious texts. Their
work therefore makes an important contribution to the conversations that this series
hopes to stage.
New York City Elizabeth A. Castelli
February 2005 RELIGION/CULTURE/CRITIQUE Series Editor
