This course explores the female divine - and supreme female beings - along with issues of gender and divinity. We read hymns praising Hindu goddesses Sri Laksmi, the great Goddess (Maha Devi), the Tamil goddess Apirami, and Bengal's Kali, while noting too how feminine divinity is constructed in environments where gods and goddesses both flourish. The course is also comparative, exploring the piety and cult of the Virgin Mary, also through famous hymns such as the Greek Akathistos, the Latin Stabat Mater, and a Tamil hymn praising Mary as mother of Tamil Catholics. This approach is sharpened by some attention to performative, social, visual dimensions, and by attention to contemporary feminist and theological insights, and thinking a bit about the fluidity of gender identities today. Not a survey, but an in-depth introduction. Jointly offered in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences as Religion 1060.
HDS 3760