New project

I have started organizing a new book project. I have spent today collecting together some books from our shelves that I want to read (or skim...), articles on gender and Christianity that I've been saving, stray references that I've noted down on green post-its.

My new project is on gender and Christianity. It is going to be an anthropological project again, or more precisely it will be historical anthropology. My specific case study is a network or movement of women who were active as part of the Norwegian Mission Society in the early twentieth century. They managed to secure the right for women to vote within the Society, they managed to get a woman formally employed at the headquarters of the Society in Norway, and so on. I'm interested in how they blended gender and theology - sometimes they would use what was perceived as "feminine" traits (e.g. feminine piety, an emphasis on intimacy) in order to try to get their will, at other times they would use theological arguments (e.g. related to Jesus' conversations with women).

Over the next months I'll try to carve out time to read about gender and religion. I always like this phase of the writing process.