Feminist encounters with symbol, myth, and ritual, Mary Daly, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, and Rosemary Radford Ruether

grantor: University of TorontoThe feminist encounter with, and figuring of, the discursive categories of myth, symbol, and ritual have been ongoing processes in the discipline of Religious Studies. In the work of three significant feminist theologians, Mary Daly, Elisabeth Schûssler Fiorenza, and Rosemary Radford Ruether, the categories of myth, symbol, and ritual are central. These categories are not, however, autonomous. Rather, they frequently interconnect with the categories of language, history, and political action. Drawing on a variety of theories that allow them to deconstruct the androcentrism and misogynism found in religious practices, specifically located in the West, they reread, reconceive, and reconstruct those religious traditions they locate themselves with. The study laid out in this text is one that focuses on Daly's, Schûssler Fiorenza's, and Radford Ruether's understanding and use of the categories of symbol, myth, and ritual respectively. To further the analysis of their feminist projects of reclamation, I have examined their development of symbol, myth, and ritual as they intersect with theories of language, hermeneutics and history, and ideology critique and identity politics. In order to engage their feminist positions, I have further intersected their feminist theoretical positions with feminist theories developed in regard to poetry, epistemology, and difference. The study, then, broadly consists of an axiomatic engagement with their work: symbol, myth and ritual interconnected with language, history, and political action which are then further interconnected with feminist poetics, feminist epistemology, and difference. Throughout this study I will continually contest their untheorized use of the categories of symbol, myth and ritual. These categories, or sub-genres in the field of religious studies, have not been theorized by the feminists within this analysis and I will point out the difficulties this lack of theorization introduces into their work. My intention is not to call for a rejection of the work Daly, Schûssler Fiorenza, and Radford Ruether have done, but rather to interact critically with their work in order to demonstrate the limitations therein, and hopefully generate further avenues of inquiry. It is my hope to extend not only feminist discourses within the field of Religious Studies, but also non-feminist discourses that seek to employ the categories of symbol, myth, and ritual.Ph.D