I believe I am so called: Materiality, affect, and ordaining women in the Episcopal Church
Abstract
The resistance to women at the front of a church is often couched in theological or exegetical language, but I believe that this resistance is rooted in affect, and expressed emotively. For many, the reaction to a woman preaching a sermon or consecrating bread and wine is not about that woman, but about the intellectual and emotional baggage that does not permit a woman to inhabit that role. The vehement and visceral reactions against women in positions of ordained ministry are results of this affective response, and the nature of such a response means that rational or logical arguments are unlikely to be productive in changing the minds of those opposing or supporting women's ordination. Rather, I posit, the way forward in understanding and acting on this issue is through relationships and through the many stories of women who have traveled on this journey. My considerations of the roles of materiality and affect in women's ordination are centered on The Episcopal Church, a mainline denomination in the United States.
Degree
M.A.
Advisors
Sullivan, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Religion|Womens studies|Rhetoric
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