Teaching Women in Chinese Religions: Roundtable on a New Sourcebook of Translated Texts

In this roundtable, a group of scholars who have collaboratively compiled a sourcebook of new critical translations of works relating to women in Chinese religions will speak about their forthcoming work, its contribution to the field, and its applications in the university classroom. Tentatively titled Teaching Women in Chinese Religions, the work focuses on women’s life-stages and how religious practices and rituals shaped norms around female identity and bodies. With chapters on roles like daughter, wife, mother and non-mother (nuns and shamans), and life-stages like girlhood, marriage, and widowhood, the book contributes to filling a critical gap in the diversity of teachable texts about women’s religious lives in Chinese history and culture. The panel aims to introduce the themes of this work, give audience members practical approaches to using its contents in the classroom, and create a forum for open discussion of best practices for teaching religion, gender, and literature.