Religion 281 - GNDR/RELGN/POPULAR CLTR/S ASIA

This course investigates the ways that religious practices influence the construction of gender identities in South Asia, and the ways that communities negotiate these influences. Through primary and secondary textual sources, as well as popular materials such as news articles, films, and comic books, we will explore the roles that women, men, and third gender people are expected to play in South Asian societies, as well as the roles that they actually play. We will consider the ways in which religious practices in South Asia can be said to enforce traditional gender roles as well as to challenge them. Topics to be considered include: contesting divine feminine energy (shakti) in contemporary Hinduism; Buddhist nuns? struggle for full ordination in Sri Lankan and Tibetan communities; phallic imagery in domestic and religious ritual in Bhutan; and the appropriation of the Gai Jatra (Cow Festival) by LGBT communities in Nepal. (E)