REL 235 WOMEN AND RELIGION IN INDIA

An investigation of women’s experience and practice of religion in India, focusing on Hinduism but exploring nexuses with other religious traditions.  The course engages the premise that gender cannot be understood without knowledge of the particularization effected by social position or status, and exposes students to ideas about social status legitimized by myth/ritual and challenged by various subaltern voices, including low-caste and no-caste men and women.  Students will examine various gendered, class, and caste conflicts, and also ways in which these conflicts are mediated, negotiated, or transcended.