INSTABILITY AND DISSONANCE: PROVOCATIONS FROM SANDRA HARDING

Abstract. Sandra Harding's work is useful, not only as a critique of the scientific method and its epistemological constructs, but also in providing new energy and insights to the discussions about epistemology between theology and science. Feminist theory has been critical of the worldviews inherited from the Enlightenment. No longer is there one unambiguous way of knowing ourselves and the world around us, a single vision of reality. Feminist philosophers of science like Sandra Harding and Donna Haraway have redefined the scientific method and its analytic categories. They have contributed significantly to this discussion by moving the Enlightenment epistemological issues into the arena of politics and ethics. Feminist theory continues to remind us that what is important is not only how or what we know but what we do with that knowledge and how we use it.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:
John Ryder, Interpreting America: Russian and Soviet Studies of the History of American Thought
Maria Pia Lara, Moral Textures: Feminist Narratives in the Public Sphere     

Technology,gender, and history: Toward a nonlinear model of social evolution

This paper presents a new nonlinear cognitive map of social evolution— sharply departing from the conventional 19th century‐based theories of linear stages from barbarism to civilization. It draws from a data base that includes the whole of humanity (both its female and male halves). And it takes into account new data from archaeology indicating that civilization is not only thousands of years older than previously thought, but originally oriented more closely to what the author calls a Partnership rather than a Dominator model of social organization. Covering over 25,000 years of social history, this article charts major technological phase changes—from the agricultural revolution circa 10,000 years ago to the industrial and more recently electronic revolutions or modern times—from the perspective of the tension between the Dominator and Partnership models. Most critically, it shows how the present period of social disequilibrium leads us to either an evolutionary breakdown or breakthrough, with the determining factor not technology per se, but rather how effectively and quickly we shift to a social organization orienting primarily to partnership rather than domination.     

Summary and Recommendation

No abstract available for this article.     

A Feminist Perspective on How Therapists Can Harm Marriages and What We Can Do About It

Abstract

On July 3rd 1999, William Doherty gave a keynote speech at the Smart Marriages Conference in Washington, DC. The title of his speech was “How Therapists Harm Marriages and What We Can Do About It.” Doherty discussed two dangers that face people seeking marital therapy. The first is individually trained therapists and the other is therapists with an individualistic orientation which may undermine marital commitment. In my comments regarding Doherty's speech, I commend his whistle blowing on the field and add to his comments from a feminist point of view.     

Heartless Bimbo or Subversive Role Model?: A Narrative (Self) Critical Reading of the Character of Esther

Abstract :  She has been described as weak, beautiful but brainless, and "the scab undermining the impact of a striking worker's sacrifice." This article engages such opinions, but takes a different view of the character of Esther. It is a narrative critical reading that is nuanced with 'realistic empathy', from the perspective of someone whose life story has much in common with Esther's tale. Given away as a child by my biological parents in a society that preferred boys, like Esther, I was adopted by a single parent and raised in a strongly patriarchal society. I am now an Asian immigrant in New Zealand, a predominantly Western society, while Esther was a diasporic Jew in Persia. ¹     

In Between Sex and the Sacred: The Articulation of an Erotic Theology in Jeanette Winterson's The Passion

Abstract

This paper explores Jeanette Winterson's manipulation of biblical stories, tropes and language in The Passion. Winterson herself has commented upon the considerable influence that Scripture has upon her imagination and this novel bears up her claim in the profusion of allusions it makes to Christian texts and practices. While there has been a considerable amount of criticism written upon her use of intertextuality involving Scripture, this paper seeks to confront the issue from a theological standpoint and ascertain the theological implications of her writing. In viewing Winterson as a theologian, the possibility is raised of disseminating a more unorthodox, creative approach to hermeneutics, which encourages both a recognition of the paternalistic, heterosexual and patriarchal rhetoric within Scripture and traditional interpretation, and the supplanting of it with a polyphony of voices, which reach beyond the boundaries of the original texts. The conclusion of this paper is that, by inverting traditional categories of the sacred and the profane, Winterson articulates a challenge to contemporary theology in its practice of reading, and also advances a new theological hermeneutic, which reclaims an affirming spirituality of the body and desire.