BECKY LEE, KATE POWER, & TAK-LING TERRY WOO

FRIDAY, MAY 6, 7:00PM–9:00PM, ROOM 7000, SFU HARBOUR CENTRE

Sponsored by SFU's J.S. Woodsworth Chair in the Humanities

Event is FREE and registration is NOT required.

BOOK LAUNCH & PANEL DISCUSSION WITH EDITORS AND AUTHORS

Notes: Copies of the book, Canadian Women Shaping Diasporic Religious Identities, will be available for purchase during the event at a discounted price of $30 (including tax). Accepted forms of payment: cash, cheque, and credit.

“Why Canadian Women Shaping Diasporic Religious Identities?”
By: Becky R. Lee

Canadians pride themselves in being part of a cultural mosaic; as former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien stated in 2000, “[Canada] contains the globe within its borders” (Jenson). However, much like a jigsaw puzzle, unless you have all of the pieces that make up a mosaic, the pattern is incomplete, the picture unclear. In this presentation, I will discuss how the essays in Canadian Women Shaping Diasporic Religious Identities add new pieces to our understanding of Canada’s cultural mosaic as they explore the, oft-overlooked, participation of women from different religious-cultural communities within their own communities and within Canada’s multicultural society.

Becky R. Lee is Associate Professor of Religious Studies in the Department of Humanities at York University. A historian of religion, her teaching and research interests include the intersection of gender and religion, the methods and theories of gender histories, and medieval and modern religiosities. Her recent publications include “Unwed Mothers in Medieval England” (2014) and “The Historian as Translator of Past Cultures: Translation(s) of Margery Kempe and her Book” (2012).

“Findings in CWSDRI and Suggested Directions for Future Research”
By: Tak-ling Terry Woo

Three aspects in the volume that challenge us to explore new directions in future research—in comparative studies, the place that “minority religions” hold in social change and how feminist ideals have changed the Canadian religious landscape—will be my focus here. First, the similarities between traditional Chinese practices—my area of research, and the mid-20th century Roman Catholic devotion to St. Gerard for protection in childbirth (Bowman, 2016), and the churching of women in Anglicanism (Morgan, 2016) were surprising. Second, the conversions to Theosophy (McCann, 2016) and the Bah’ai Faith (Echevarria, 2016) during the late 19th and early 20th and into the mid-20th century attest to an early diversity and openness to alternative religiosities that are not often chronicled. And finally, the strong interest in feminism among some of the faithful and the transformation of traditional institutions, beliefs and practices (Goldberg, 2016; Pearson, 2016; Spina, 2016) were unexpected.

Tak-ling Terry Woo teaches in the Humanities department at York University. Her research interests incorporate theories about women in Chinese religions and their lived experiences, and Chinese religiosities in diaspora. Her publications include "Distinctive Beliefs and Practices: Chinese Religiosities in Saskatoon, Canada" (forthcoming in the Journal of Chinese Overseas), “An Integrated Approach to a Philosophical Study of Women from Tang to Song” (Bloomsbury 2016), “Chinese and Korean Religions” in A Concise Introduction to World Religions 3/e (Oxford 2015) and “Chinese Popular Religion in Diaspora: A Case Study of Shrines in Toronto’s Chinatowns” (2010).

“Watching as Religious Women Speak Themselves into Being”
By: Kate Power

Identity is everywhere in today’s academy, but it is also a word that suffers from overuse (Grad & Martín Rojo, 2008). Linguists tend to view identity as an “emergent product […] of linguistic and other semiotic practices” (Bucholtz & Hall, 2005, p. 588), and to critique traditional, realist notions of the “self” (which are often associated with religion) as “essentialist” (Widdicombe, 1998, p. 194). In this lecture, I will draw on my contribution to Canadian Women Shaping Diasporic Religious Identities, as well as some of my other research, to show how religious women in various contexts “work up and work to this or that identity, for themselves and others, there and then, either as an end in itself or towards some other end” (Antaki & Widdicombe, 1998, p. 2). In doing so, I will also explore how religious women engage with the identity “label[s]” assigned to them by others (Wetherell, 1996, p. 34).

Kate Power is a critical discourse analyst, who earned her PhD in Applied Linguistics at Lancaster University, UK. Her doctoral thesis looked at how people “give off” a sense of their religious identity when talking about contemporary social issues, such as Canadian multiculturalism. While teaching academic research and writing at the University of British Columbia, Kate continues to research and write across academic disciplines – with interests in religiosity, gender/sexuality, international development, economics, and popular culture. Kate is currently Secretary for the International Gender and Language Association, and Managing Editor for the journal Secularism and Nonreligion.

BOOK REVIEWS:

Reviewer 1:

“The volume as a whole sets out to explore the variety of women’s religious experiences in relation to society and religious institutionalized authorities and the essays presented here…offer an impressive range of attitudes, circumstances, and strategies among Canadian women.”

"(Kate Power's) is a model chapter, exceedingly well-written, well-focused, and addressing an area important for religious studies on the whole and presenting an excellent case for the value of fieldwork among women on their religious lives as a way to study and highlight religion as part of modern life, rather than a problem for modern societies... The discourse analysis is particularly good. Throughout this chapter, the author is entirely adept at incorporating other scholars' concept, tools, etc., into her analysis of her own data."

Reviewer 2:

“The various authors take different approaches but all of them privilege the voices of women themselves. This is the most significant element of this collection. Focusing on women's lived experiences gives us a number of snap shots of Canadian women's religiosity over the history of Canada as a nation of immigrants. That the authors (and editor) recognize the importance of diasporic identities, even for those who's communities have been in Canada for multiple generations, is original and a much needed contribution to discussions of Canadian identity."