Browsing by Author "Tobler, Judith"

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    Gendered signs of the sacred : contested images of the mother in psychoanalysis, feminism, and Hindu myth
    (1997) Tobler, Judith; Chidester, David
    This thesis engages a multi-disciplinary theoretical approach to identifying, analysing, and interpreting discourse relating to the feminine and the maternal found at the intersection of psychoanalysis, feminism, and religion. The study explores embodiment, gender, and the sacred as expressed in symbolic representations of the mother and the institution of motherhood in patriarchy. I have therefore drawn on Freudian and post-Freudian theories, gender analysis, feminist critical analysis, and classical Hindu goddess myth to discern ways in which sacred images of the mother serve to reinforce the oppression of women on the one hand and can be transformed to provide empowering symbols for women's lived reality on the other. Theory of sacred space is also employed, particularly with regard to the human production of the sacred through the contested politics of sacred space.
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    The lonely goddess : the lack of benevolent female relationships in Hindu and Shi'ite mythology
    (2003) Isaacs-Martin, Wendy Jane; Tobler, Judith
    This minor dissertation engages a theoretical feminist discourse to identify the lack of benevolent female relationships in the development of religious mythology. The study explores two diverse belief systems, Hinduism and Shi'ism, in order to demonstrate that the feminine is reduced to a subservient and controlled creative force across different religious and cultural systems. The study further develops the roles of the woman in the religious tradition, as mother and nurse to the hero and the guardian of male symbols and language. I have drawn on the feminist critical analysis of Luce Irigaray, and on classical Hindu and Shi'ite myth, to discern ways in which the femaile has been alienated from patriarchal social reality, due to the male-defined construction of the sacred, divine and submissive woman.