Search results
1 – 10 of over 1000This chapter describes how women who work as pleaders in the Israeli rabbinic courts try to decipher the dissonance between their canonical texts and their modern sensibilities…
Abstract
This chapter describes how women who work as pleaders in the Israeli rabbinic courts try to decipher the dissonance between their canonical texts and their modern sensibilities, dividing the interpretive strategies that the pleaders employ to that end into three different categories. The chapter then explores the implications of these findings with respect to theories of agency, feminist consciousness, how law is read, and identity politics (multiculturalism), as well as with respect to issues of value, power, and divorce reform.
Colin Bloom’s recent report Does Government ‘do God’? (2023) examines, in great detail, the sensitivity and rigour of the place of religion in contemporary British society. More…
Abstract
Colin Bloom’s recent report Does Government ‘do God’? (2023) examines, in great detail, the sensitivity and rigour of the place of religion in contemporary British society. More precisely, how the government and its institutions engage with religion. In the timely report, Bloom uncovers many instances where religion and faith are a force for good but also where society and the actors and agencies that contribute towards it struggle to understand people of faith and their expressions of it. While not specifically examining how universities engage with this, the message is clear, as a society we are largely ignorant of (at best) or hostile to (at worst) the place of religion in people’s lives. This chapter examines what this means for universities and how academics, support staff, and students can become more aware of the contributing factors to a religious worldview. An awareness of religion as a sensitive subject for many, which in turn may lead to misunderstanding, must be addressed and explored in order for shared understanding to emerge.
Details
Keywords
This paper aims to illustrate how graphic novel adaptations can engage adolescents in conversations about gender and society, particularly when adaptations are weighed against…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to illustrate how graphic novel adaptations can engage adolescents in conversations about gender and society, particularly when adaptations are weighed against messaging found in a student’s everyday life such as religiously motivated gender normativity.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is based on quantitative and qualitative analyzes of the interview, think-aloud and survey data collected from 15 adolescents who self-identified as Modern Orthodox Jewish women. Texts used for think-aloud were three graphic novel adaptations that critically adapted potentially misogynistic readings and interpretations of religious Jewish texts such as the Bible.
Findings
Epistemic network analysis and constructivist grounded theory show that visual elements found in each adaptation can spark deeply personal reflections on topics that are often explicitly or implicitly suppressed by social norms such as gender normativity in Jewish texts and practices.
Originality/value
This paper is timely and contributes to understanding the apparent cultural clash between religious conservativism and movements for social change, using the graphic novel to mediate between them.
Details
Keywords
Abstract
Details
Keywords
Abstract
This project explores tensions at the heart of the fair-trade organization Ten Thousand Villages. I investigate the ways in which this organization attempts to balance concerns of…
Abstract
Purpose
This project explores tensions at the heart of the fair-trade organization Ten Thousand Villages. I investigate the ways in which this organization attempts to balance concerns of North American staff and volunteers, to care for artisans abroad, and to incorporate expansion plans in the face of challenges raised by the recession.
Methodology/approach
This chapter draws on fieldwork with stores in Toronto (2011–2012) and ongoing fieldwork (summer 2014 and 2015) with the flagship store in Ephrata, Pennsylvania.
Findings
Members express continuing tension between the organization’s founding Mennonite values and the more recent orientation chosen by leadership, to compete successfully in “regular” retail space against non-fair-trade brands. Store staff and volunteers perceive Villages’ buying practices, meant to provide “fairness” to producers in the developing world, as somewhat inconsistent with the treatment of North American store employees. Corporate leadership is mainly focused on ameliorating poverty abroad, rather than framing the organization’s work in a broader social justice context, which store staff and volunteers expect.
Originality/value
At a time of increasing dialogue about alternative value systems that expand notions of economic worth, the fair-trade movement offers a useful model for one attempt to work within the market system to ameliorate its damages. Understanding how one organization negotiates its own competing value systems can provide useful perspective on other revaluation projects.
Details