Feminist Studies in Liturgy
2002 Reston, Virginia
2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002
Convener 2002
(preparatory convener) Martha Ann Kirk C.C.V.I. (professor of liturgy at the University of the Incarnate Word, San Antonio, Texas); (convener in Reston) Susan K. Roll (associate professor of liturgy and systematic theology, Christ the King Seminary, East Aurora [Buffalo)], New York)
Seminar Participants 2002
Teresa Berger, Heather Murray Elkins, Martha Whitmore Hickman, Marcia McFee, Susan Roll, Linda Vogel, Janet Walton
Seminar Report 2002
At Reston we divided our work sessions into two distinctive themes: on Friday we focused on feminist liturgies in an international perspective and on Saturday we shared and discussed syllabi from our courses on feminist liturgy or feminist theology, dealing with methodological issues and approaches.
Papers
“Feminist Liturgies Worldwide” by Diann Neu (co-director of WATER, the Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual, Silver Spring, Maryland, guest presenter)
Since the early 1980s an increasing number of local groups of women in various countries who celebrate ritual/liturgy rooted in their own cultural and political contexts have been identified. W.A.T.E.R. in the United States and a group in Peru seem to have been among the earliest. Diann Neu summarized a variety of geographically identified groups together with their most striking individual characteristics: the effective use of symbols and ritual acts in the public forum by the Mothers of the Disappeared in Argentina; a group centered around reproductive issues in Paraguay; groups emphasizing the theme of blood in Peru; the use of movement and dance in Chile; “Bridget’s Wells” in Ireland; ongoing womenchurch groups in Switzerland, the Netherlands, England, Sweden, South Africa, South Korea, Cuba, and Canada; groups who have designed effective liturgies dealing with the healing from abuse in Australia; South American groups focusing on the Pachamama and the four elements (earth, air, fire, water); and groups developing new ritual approaches to widowhood in Ghana. A formal training course in how to organize women’s liturgies has been developed and published by the staff of the Anna Paulsen Haus in Germany.
Teresa Berger (associate professor of ecumenical theology, Divinity School, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina)
Her recently published book Dissident Daughters: feminist liturgies in global context (Louisville: Westminster/ John Knox, 2001) is the first book to map in a global way the struggle for women’s rites, moving women’s liturgical practices into a larger terrain and showing that the women’s liturgical movement is not limited to the First World. The various contributions collected and edited here represent a form of history-writing of the stories of the writers’ own communities. Culture is a crucial formative factor in the shape these liturgies take. This study indicates that gender is not a stable category; that is, what is meant by “women” varies across cultural, ethnic, religious, and other contexts. Similarly, what is meant by “tradition” shifts and takes shape in different contexts, affecting the nature of liturgy as a public act with potentially multiple private meanings.
Other work of the seminar
Marcia McFee spoke on the history of the frame drum and drumming as a ritual act of women. A sufficient number of drums provided a chance for participants to practice. Heather Murray Elkins described her experiences teaching at Ewha Women’s University in Seoul, Korea by means of a photo album of celebrations; she also presented and told the story of a Korean hand-crafted ceramic Eucharist set. Meditative or ritual moments included a meditation on peace by Diann Neu, a meditation on spoons by Heather Murray Elkins, remembering absent members of the seminar by Susan Roll, and the passing of a handcrafted broom.
At the 2003 meeting in Indianapolis our themes will include the theology and the wisdom of the body in liturgy and women and aging.