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Lisbeth Mikaelsson on Religion and Gender

From dress codes to notions of purity to questions of the legitimate of power the topic of gender is one few scholars can afford to ignore. With a whole range of issues to be investigated Lisbeth Mikaelsson gives us an introductory insight into the complex topic of religion and gender: the issues it raises, the way we go about it, who’s doing it and why.

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Featuring

Lisbeth Mikaelsson

Jonathan Tuckett

About this episode

Gender has always played a significant role in the everyday lives of people. This is no more true than in the case of religion and there is a burgeoning field in religious studies dedicated to the study of the role of gender within religions. From dress codes to notions of purity to questions of the legitimate of power the topic of gender is one few scholars can afford to ignore. With a whole range of issues to be investigated Lisbeth Mikaelsson gives us an introductory insight into the complex topic of religion and gender: the issues it raises, the way we go about it, who’s doing it and why.

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Lisbeth Mikaelsson is professor of religion in the department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion at the University of Bergen. More recently she has shifted her specialism from religion and gender to new religious movements and is currently studying the Prosperity Movement. She has published a number of books and articles in Norwegian. In English she has published on the topic of Gender in Armin Geertz’ edited volume New Approaches to the Study of Religion and the journal Numen.

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Double Trouble: Some Reflections on (En)gendering the Study of Religion

Engaging gender as an important category of analysis in the study of religion is to interrogate, destabilise, and interrupt the ‘business-as-usual’ of the conceptual and organisational assumptions often employed in our highly dynamic yet historically and oft-times structurally androcentric discipline.

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