Sex, Gender and the Sacred presents a multi-faith, multi-disciplinary collection of essays that explore the interlocking narratives of religion and gender encompassing 4,000 years of history.

Contains readings relating to sex and religion that encompass 4,000 years of gender historyFeatures new research in religion and gender across diverse cultures, periods, and religious traditionsPresents multi-faith and multi-disciplinary perspectives with significant comparative potentialOffers original theories and concepts relating to gender, religion, and sexualityIncludes innovative interpretations of the connections between visual, verbal, and material aspects of particular religious traditions

Joanna de Groot is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of York and a member of the Centres for Eighteenth Century Studies, Modern Studies and Womens Studies.

Sue Morgan is Professor of Womens and Gender History at the University of Chichester, UK. She works on the history of religion and gender and her most recent publications include the co-edited volumesWomen, Gender and Religious Cultures: Britain, 1800-1940 (2010) with Jacqueline de Vries andMen, Masculinities and Religious Change in Twentieth Century Britain (2013) with Lucy Delap.

Notes on Contributors vii

Introduction: Beyond the Religious Turn? Past, Present and Future Perspectives in Gender History 1JOANNA DE GROOT AND SUE MORGAN

Part I: Crossing Cultures and Transnational Exchanges

1 Witches, Female Priests and Sacred Manoeuvres: (De)Stabilising Gender and Sexuality in a Cuban Religion of African Origin 31CAROLYN E. WATSON

2 Liberal Religion and the Woman Question between East and West: Perspectives from a Nineteenth-Century Bengali Womens Journal 51CLARE MIDGLEY

3 Indeterminacy in Meaning: Religious Syncretism and Dynastic Historiography in the Shannuren zhuan 67YUET KEUNG LO

4 All of Their Customs are Daughters of Their Religion: Baptists in Post-Revolutionary Mexico, 1920spresent 83KATHLEEN M. McINTYRE

5 Creating the Problem Hindu: Sati, Thuggee and Female Infanticide in India, 180060 104DANIEL J. R. GREY

Part II: Religion, Embodiment and Subjectivity

6 Engendering Purity and Impurity in Assyriological Studies: A Historiographical Overview 119ERICA COUTO-FERREIRA AND AGN`ES GARCIA-VENTURA

7 Lamentation Motifs in Medieval Hagiography 135ANNE E. BAILEY

8 Architecture of Desire: Mediating the Female Gaze in the Medieval English Anchorhold 150MICHELLE M. SAUER

9 The Alluring Beauty of a Leonardesque Ideal: Masculinity and Spirituality in Renaissance Milan 170MAYA CORRY

10 Deaf to the Word: Gender, Deafness and Protestantism in Nineteenth-Century Britain and Ireland 195ESME CLEALL

Part III: Religion, Gender and Sexuality

11 The Sexual Shame of the Chaste: Abortion Miracles in Early Medieval Saints Lives 211ZUBIN MISTRY

12 Give Me Chastity: Masculinity and Attitudes to Chastity and Celibacy in the Middle Ages 225PAT CULLUM

13 Common Soldiers, Same-Sex Love and Religion in the Early Eighteenth-Century British Army 241SUSAN GANE

14 Dark Ecstasies: Sex, Mysticism and Psychology in Early Twentieth-Century England 256JOY DIXON

15 Made Flesh? Gender and Doctrine in Religious Violence in Twentieth-Century Spain 272MARY VINCENT

Part IV: Gender, Religion and Political Activity

16 Conversion Trouble: The Alawis of Hadhramawt, Empire, Gender and the Problem of Sovereignty in Nineteenth-Century South India 287WILSON CHACKO JACOB

17 Fatherland, Religion, Family: Exploring the History of a Slogan in Greece, 18801930 304EFFI GAZI

18 The More Things Change: Debating Gender and Religion in Indias Hindu Laws, 19202006 315RINA VERMA WILLIAMS

Index 329