Courses in the planning stage

Art by women, ancient and modern

Throughout history women as well as men have been involved in creative arts. The contribution of women has usually been ignored. This course aims at discovering distinctive female arts and skills in ancient as well as present-day societies. The course also addresses the question whether all differences are culture-conditioned or whether they have a genetic component.

Asian matriarchal societies

A number of tribal societies in India, Malaysia and the Philippines have preserved typically matriarchal features. Analysing such features helps us identify the variety of elements in ownership, parental authority, social roles and kinship that make up the web of male-female relationships.

Careers for women with a family

In modern society many women combine pursuing an active career while caring for children. This often results in tensions. The course examines how professional women in a number of countries cope with these stresses and which approaches have been found helpful to reduce conflict.

The causes of women's emancipation in the twentieth century

The twentieth century has seen an upsurge of women's emancipation in education, politics, commerce, the sciences and professional occupations in Western countries. What caused this phenomenal social change? What can leaders in other parts of the world learn from the beneficial and harmful effects of this far-reaching social transformation?

background information

Christology in feminist and international perspectives

The course which is based on the work of Rosemary Radford Ruether moves through five modules:
* Christology in contemporary critical perspectives: Europe and North America
* U.S. North American Feminist Perspectives
* Latin American Liberation and Feminist Perspectives
* African Feminist Perspectives
* Feminist Christologies from Asia

Church in the round. Feminist interpretation of the Church

The Catholic Church has traditionally been seen as a patriarchal & hierarchical pyramid. This course outlines the revolutionary insights of Lettie Russell who proposes a new model based on both contemporary values and the vision of the original Christian communities.

planned

Democracy and the emancipation of women

Are democracy and the emancipation of women necessarily intertwined? This course studies the historical connection between the two and cases where the connection failed. What can social leaders learn from such past experiences?

Divinity and gender in ancient India

Traditional Hindu society is indisputably patriarchal in rights and practices. At the same time it manifests a preference for female symbols in worship and religious myths, a preference that may have arisen from the influence of the Dravidian cult of the mother goddess. The course examines whether this underlying preference predisposes Hindu society to female emancipation.

The education of women and social development

Research shows that the level of literacy and education of women correlates with the level of social and economic development of a country. The course examines in particular what kind of education contributes most to lifting a society out of poverty.

The effects of globalisation on gender issues

Our world is rapidly becoming internationall integrated, partly through trade links, partly through the new means of communication. This has a great influence on exposing gender issues and, at times, on stimulating social change.

Female genital mutilation

Female genital mutilation is mainly practised in the Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt. It is not known in other Muslim countries. The course analyses the history of the practice, its cultural origins, its being embedded in religion and effective approaches to combat the abuse.

background information

Female infanticide

Girls are killed at birth in some parts of India and China when they are seen by the parents as competing with male offspring. Although poverty is the main cause of the practice, strong cultural and religious prejudices also lie at its roots.

background information

Feminism, redemption and Christian Tradition

This course is based on Mary Grey's ground-breaking work Redeeming the Dream. Redemption cannot be said to have really come to women unless they are fully integrated in all aspects of the salvific process initiated by Christ.

Man and woman in God's image - wrestling with gender in the thinking of the Church

This course will be based on the life-long study of Kari Børresen. Were women too created in God's image? We follow the discussion in detail, from the Greek and Latin Fathers of the Church to well into the Middle Ages. We assess the consequences of anti-feminist trends in Tradition for the position of women in the Christian Churches.

planned

Marriage and gender in Bantu Africa

Bantu culture, which covers a large slab of the African continent, dictates marriage customs including the dowry system and polygamy. The Bantu concept of women's role still determines the fate of many women in African societies.

The 'Querelle des Femmes' in post-renaissance Europe

In France, Germany, Italy and England, from the 17th to the 19th centuries, women were submitted to academic and social debates focusing on their status as human beings. The exchanges revealed both the deep-seated cultural and religious prejudices prevalent at the time and the emergence of a group of militant women.

background information

The rise of male domination in ancient cultures

Male domination in western societies has been associated with the arrival of systematic agriculture and the concomitant need of state building. Others claim that man's social dominance is inborn. The course examines such claims and proposes tentative conclusions of relevance to women's emancipation.

The suppression of women's writings during the Enlightenment

The injunction, found in 1 Timothy 2,11-15 that women should not teach, prevented women from being educated in the Middle Ages. Women's writings, if any existed, were genrally ignored. This prejudice continued even during the time of the Enlightenment.

Women and international law

Women have gradually acquired more rights in various countries. Conventions of international law have had, and still have, a beneficial influence on national policies. The course studies the extent of provisions made for women in present-day international statutes, and assesses how they are being implemented on local level.

background information

Women's economic status and health issues

A person 's poverty directly affects his or her physical well-being. The course examines how women's poverty in particular has contributed to diseases that women suffer in many parts of the world. The course proposes models of alleviation that tackle both the economic condition and the improvement of health at the same time.