CONTRIBUTORS - Women's Studies
Evangeline Anderson-Rajkumar
Evangeline Anderson-Rajkumar completed her B.D. from UTC, M.Th from
Tamilnadu Theological Seminary and her doctorate from South Asia Theological
Research institute. She has served as lecturer in Theology and Ethics at the
Serampore College for four years. She is currently working as the Associate
Professor and Chairperson of Women’s Studies Department at the United
Theological College, Bangalore. She belongs to the India Evangelical Lutheran
Church. Evangeline is also the President of Association of Theologically Trained
Women of India (ATTWI).
Lalrinawmi Ralte
Lalrinawmi Ralte, who is also known as ‘Rini’ is born and brought up in Mizoram.
She was the first Secretary of Mizoram YWCA and engaged herself in
social-political and religious sphere. She did her theological studies of BD
from UTC Bangalore, and later she completed STM from Christian Theological
Seminary, Indianapolis, USA and Doctor of Ministry in Feminist Liberation
Theology and Ministry from the Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Boston.
Since 1994, she has been teaching at the United Theological College, Bangalore,
in the department of ‘Women’s Studies.’ She is a Coordinator of a newly formed
INDIAN WOMEN IN THEOLOGY, a publication unit of WINA (Women’s Institute for New
Awakening), which is a voice of women theologians in India. She wrote several
books and articles both in English and in Mizo. She is a member of EATWOT and
CATS, also a member of the Advisory Editorial Committee of In God’s Image, the
Asian Feminist Theological Journal. Currently, Rini is doing a doctoral
research on Tribal Ecofeminist theology.
N.B.E. Bharathi
N.B.E Bharathi did her M.A. (History) from Hyderabad Central University, B.D.
from Union Biblical Seminary, Pune and M.Th from the United Theological College,
Bangalore. Presently she is teaching History of Christianity at the Union
Biblical Seminary, Pune.
Gabriele Dietrich
Dr. Gabriele Dietrich is Professor at the Department of Social Analysis of
Tamil Nadu Theological Seminary, Madurai. She is teaching Social Analysis and
Feminist Theology at BD, M.Th and Doctoral level. She is prolific writer on
Women’s movement, ecology and religion. She has been active in the women’s
movements since over 25years and also works closely with Unions on the
unorganised sector. She has been on the Executive of Indian Association of
Women’s Studies several times. She is a member of Senate of Serampore. She is
a naturalised Indian citizen.
Stella Faria
Stella is very active member of the Church and she has held different kinds of
jobs and is also trained journalist. For over 20 years she has served as a
member of the Karnataka Board of Social Welfare. Author/Editor of numerous
articles and some books. She has done her MA in Political Science and
post-graduate work in Philosophy at Dharmaram College, Bangalore. Stella is
also a founder member of AWRC and WINA. At present, she is a President of WINA.
Aruna Gnanadason
Aruna Gnanadason is Coordinator of the Justice Peace and Creation Team and of
the Women’s Programme of the World Council of Churches, Geneva, Switzerland. She
took up her appointment with WCC in May, 1991. She has served as a Lecturer in
English Literature in Bangalore, with the Ecumenical Christian Centre,
Whitefield, Bangalore, and with the All India Council of Christian Women, of the
National Council of Churches in India as its executive secretary. She is a
member of the EATWOT (Ecumenical Association of Third World Theology and has
received honorary doctorate from the Academy of Indian Ecumenical Theology and
Church Administration and an Honorary Doctorate in Theology from the Senate of
Serampore College, India recently. She is presently a candidate for a doctoral
degree in ministries in the areas of feminist theologies, with the San Francisco
Theological Seminary, USA.
R.L. Hnuni
R.L. Hnuni belongs to the Mizoram Baptist Church. She did her B.D. from
Serampore College, M.Th and D.Th from UTC, Bangalore. She taught in Eastern
Theological College (ETC) Jorhat for a long time. She is presently the
Treasurer of the Senate of Serampore College and also the first woman Principal
in the Theological Colleges under the Senate of Serampore College family.
Narola Imchen
Dr. Narola Imchen is a lecturer at Eastern Theological College, Jorhat. She
teaches History of Christianity and is the head of the Department of History.
She is the Director of the Post-Graduate Programme in the college. She is also
the Dean of the Women Study
centre. she has great interest in women's issues and is actively involved in
creating awareness about women's issues, especially in North East India. She has
written and edited several articles and books on women of North East India.
Elizabeth Joy
Elizabeth Joy comes from a family of theologians where fourteen are in theology
and ministry from seven different ecumenical denominations. She belongs to the
Orthodox Church. She has completed her B.D. and M.Th. from the United
Theological College, Bangalore. Till recently, she served as the General
Secretary of the Student Christian Movement in India. Presently she is working
as the Executive Secretary for Mission Education for the Council for World
Mission.
Sunita Noronha
Sunita Noronha till recently was the Executive Secretary of the All India
Council of Christian Women Unit IV of the National Council of Churches in India.
At present she is working towards her doctoral studies in States at Emory
University, Atlanta GA. Her qualifications include, B.Ed. from Hawabagh Women's
College, Jabalpur, B.D. from Union Biblical Seminary, Yavatmal, M.Th. from
United Theological College, Bangalore and Th.M. from Candler School of Theology,
Emory University, Atlanta. Sunita is member of the Methodist Church in India.
Augusta Paul
Augusta Paul belongs to Methodist church in India worship at Richmond Town
Methodist Church. She has MA in Sociology and MA in Biblical Studies. She
teaches Sociology and Value Education at Baldwin Women’s Methodist College. She
married to Thomas Paul and is a proud mother of three daughters.
Leela Jolly Thomas
Leela J.Thomas belongs to the Mar Thoma Church and works among the Church women.
She is also active in the Sevika Sangam, women’s wing of the MarThoma Church.
Nirmala Vasanthakumar
Nirmala Vasanthakumar got her B.D. from the United Theological College in
1975. She is a pastor in the Karnataka Central Diocese. Formerly she worked as
Executive Secretary of the NCCI, for AICCW. She is active as the President of
the Women’s Fellowship of the Karnataka Central Diocese, CSI.
K.C. Abraham
Dr. K.C. Abraham, a presbyter of the Church of South India was formerly the
Direcotr of South Asia Theological Research Institute, a Doctoral Programme of
the Serampore University. Born in Kerala, Dr. Abraham has been educated in
Bangalore and USA. He took hi Ph.D from Princeton Theological Seminary, USA.
As President of Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians, and member of
many committees of Christian Conference of Asia and World Council of Churches,
Dr. Abraham has made his contribution to the ecumenical movement. A theologian
and writer he has written numerous books and articles on issues like Christian
Ethics, Church and Society, Ecology, Mission, Ecumenism, Pluralism and other
contemporary issues.
Flavia Agnes
Flavia Agnes is a feminist legal activist and has been a practising lawyer for
nearly two decades specialising in women's rights. Among the leading cases she
has won are the striking down of discriminatory provisions under the Christian
law of divorce, securing safety of sexually abused young girls in government
rescue homes securing women the right to reside in their matrimonial home and
securing injunctions restraining domestic violence.
Her other concerns are secularism and minority rights and she has worked
consistently in developing an interface between gender and identity and has
written some incisive articles probing the communal bias beneath the demand for
a Uniform Civil Code. Her book, Law and Gender Inequality which examines the
political under currents within personal laws in India has recently been
republished as an omnibus by Oxford University Press by the title, Women and Law
(2004).
She is a founder member and currently a Secretary of Majlis, a legal and
cultural resource centre. The legal centre of Majlis provides legal advocacy and
litigation help to women in distress, initiates public interest litigations in
defence of women's rights and intervenes at policy level reforms for gender
based law reforms.
Durre A. Ahmed
Dr. Durre Ahmed is Director, Graduate Program in Cultural Studies and Professor
of Psychology at the National College of Arts, Lahore, Pakistan. She is the
author of Masculinity, Rationality and Religion (ASR, 1992) and a contributing
editor of Gendering the Spirit: Women, Religion and the Post-Colonial Response
(ZED. 2002).
Jasodhara Bagchi
Jasodhara Bagchi is an academic activist committed to Women's Studies as part of
women's movement. A left democratic feminist deeply opposed to the current phase
of Imperialist Globalisation. Currently, Ms. Bagchi is a Chairperson of the
Women’s Commission in the West Bengal State.
Kamla Bhasin
Kamla Bhasin was born and educated in Rajasthan. With her experience as a
lecturer and research assistant in Germany, she worked in India in various
capacities as Development Secretary of the Seva Mandir in Udaipur, Programme
Officer of the FAO as the UN International staff, as a freelance journalist,
feminist, writer etc. She is noted for her books, reports etc. especially on
women’s development, justice, gender equality, as well as her engagement in both
international and national organisations on justice issue.
Mary Schaller Blaufuss
Mary Schaller Blaufuss is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ,
USA, having previously served as pastor of local congregations in Iowa and
Pennsylvania. She earned her Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary.
Uma Chakravarti
Uma Chakravarti is a feminist historian who has been associated with the
movement for democratic right and women’s right since 1970s. She is the author
of the Social Dimension of Early Buddhism (1987), and Re-writing History. She
has been actively engaged in both people’s movement as well as in creating
awareness of social justice through writing.
Chhaya Datar
Prof. Chhaya Datar after her initial studies at Pune (BA) and the Hague (MA in
Women & Development) completed her Ph.D in Sociology from Bombay. From the
1970s, she is fully involved in various voluntary organisations as a journalist,
trainer of tribal women, founder member of Forum Against Rape, Stree Mukhti
Sanghatana etc. She has presented and published several papers and books, as
well as brought out slide shows. From 1999 to 2001, she taught at Chatham
College under the Fullbright scholarship. At present, she is Professor and head
of the Unit of Women’s Studies at the Tata Institute of Social Studies, Bombay.
Glory E. Dharmaraj
Glory E. Dharmaraj, Ph.D is Executive Secretary for Justice Education for the
Women’s Division, General Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist
Church in New York. She also directs the Seminar Program on National and
International Affairs at the Church Center for the United Nations, New York.
She received her B.A. degree from Madras University, and B.Ed., and M.A in
Madurai University. She has taught in Sarah Tucker College, Tamil Nadu and
Queen Mary, Mumbai. She did her Ph.D in Loyola University of Chicago.
She has written books on Concepts of Mission and a Study Guide on Creating
Interfaith Communities, and Study books on Christmas People in a Terrorist
Crisis and From Imperial Temptations to Easter Invitation. She has co-authored
three books with her husband, Jacob Dharmaraj, Christianity and Islam: A
Missiological Encounter (ISPCK), Mutuality in Mission, and Christianity, Judaism
and Islam: A Missiological Encounter (ISPCK).
Stella Faria
Stella is an active member of the church. She is a trained journalist and has
served as the Boards of Several Leading Organizations in the Corporate and
Voluntary Sectors. For 11 years she was a Member/Treasurer of the Karnataka
State Social Welfare Advisory Board, Executive member of the Indian Council of
Social Welfare, Council of Catholic Women of India, Ecumenical Christian Centre,
EATWOT etc.
Author/Editor of numerous articles and some books. Stella has a master degree
in Political Science and has done post graduate work in Philosophy. She is a
founder member of WINA (Women’s Institute for New Awakening) and AWRC (Asian
Women Resource Centre). At present she is the President of WINA.
Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza
Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenze is an outstanding academician, feminist, theologian
and biblical scholar. She is a member of many professional societies,
consultant on many advisory academic boards, editor of several journals (Concilium,
CBQ, Semeia, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, JBL, Journal of Law and
Religion etc.). She has published several books, and also edited many
including papers on women’s stories and issues, Religion, Feminist Spirituality
and Biblical Interpretation.
Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza taught at Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, US.
She also taught courses and held seminars on Synoptic Gospels, Pauline
literature, Johannie literature, New Testament theology, New Testament Ethics,
Gospel Stories of Women, Images of Jesus, Feminist Biblical Interpretation,
Multicultural Biblical Contrasm, Feminist historical reconstruction, Lukan
exegesis, Ethic & Rhetoric, New Testament Christology, Feminist Theory and
Theology.
Mary Grey
Mary Grey is an ecofeminist liberation theologian, currently D.J.James Professor
of Pastoral theology at the University of Wales, Lampeter and formerly Professor
of Feminism and Christianity at the Catholic University of Nijmegen, the
Netherlands. Her recent writing includes Introducing Feminist Images of God,
(London: Continuum 2001), Sacred Longings: Ecofeminist Theology and
Globalisation, (London: SCM 2003), and The Unheard Scream: The Lives and
Struggles of Dalit Women in India, (New Delhi 2004). What continues to inspire
her work is a long involvement in the lives of rural women in Rajasthan, NW
India, as part of an NGO, Wells for India, that works with Gandhian partners in
sustainable water projects and related social issues.
Caroline Mackenzie
Caroline Mackenzie is an artist. After graduating from St Martin’s School of
Art, London, she traveled to India. For six years she lived in a village near
Bangalore and for six years in a Sri Vaishnava temple town. After returning to
Europe in 1988 she has been involved in various types of psychotherapy,
particularly Jungian. She has worked for the Church both in India and U.K. Her
work has been exhibited in Chennai, London and Brussels.
Monica Melanchthon
Monica Jyotsna Melanchthon teaches Old Testament at the Gurukul Lutheran
Theological College, Chennai.
Ritu Menon
Ritu Menon is a publisher and writer. She is co-author of Borders and
Boundaries: Women in India’s Partition, and of Inequality and Community
Disadvantage: A Study of Muslim Women in India (forthcoming); and editor,
Unmaking the Nation: A Three Country Perspective on the Partition of India
(forthcoming).
Nalini Nayak
Nalini Nayak is a social activist cum researcher. Based in Trivandrum, Kerala,
she has worked for several decades with the coastal communities, and is a
founder member of the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers. She
is also one of the founder members of SEWA - Kerala and is presently its
honorary Secretary.
Rosemary Radford Ruether
Carpenter Professor of Feminist Theology at Pacific School of Religion and the
Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. Rosemary Radford Ruether
has been a pioneer Christian feminist theologian for over three decades and is
among the most widely read theologians in the world. Her book, Sexism and
God-Talk, a classic in the field of theology, remains the only systematic
feminist treatment of the Christian symbols to date. With wide-ranging
scholarship, Dr. Ruether has written and edited over thirty books and hundreds
of articles and reviews.
Dr. Ruether's primary research and teaching interest is women and social justice
in theological history. Her work explores how Christian theology has been biased
by the exclusion of women's experience and seeks to shape an inclusive theology.
"The integration of women into theological education and ministry offers a
unique period in the history of the Christian church, "she writes," when the
contributions of women to the life of the church can be recovered." She has a
continuing interest in addressing justice issues, particularly in Palestine and
Latin America.
Letty M. Russell
Letty M. Russell is Professor Emerita of Theology at Yale Divinity School in the
United States. Ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1958, she was a pastor in
the East Harlem Protestant Parish in New York City for many years. She is a
member of the Yale Divinity School Women’s Initiative on Gender, Faith, and
Responses to HIV/AIDS in Africa, and is Co-coordinator of the International
Feminist DMin. Program at San Francisco Theological Seminary.
Jyoti Sahi
Born in 1944, in Pune. Studied art first under the guidance of Suddhir Khastigir,
one of the first group of students under Nandalal Bose, at the Kala Bhavan of
Shantiniketan, which was founded by Rabindranath Tagore. Studied art in London,
at the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, from 1959-1963.
Met Dom Bede Griffiths in 1963, and later lived in his experimental Christian
Ashram both at Kurisumala in Kerala, and Shantivanam in Tamilnad. Came to
Bangalore in 1970, with his wife Jane, soon after Fr. Bede married them in
Shantivanam Ashram. Worked at the National Biblical Liturgical and Catechetical
Centre in Bangalore which was founded by Fr. Amalorpavadas. Subsequently they
have worked on various Church commissions both in India and abroad. Concerned
with the place of the visual arts in the life of the Church.
Tanika Sarkar
Tanika Sarkar is a Professor of Momodern History, Centre for Historical Studies,
Jawaharlal Nehru University. Author of -
(1) Bengal 1928-1934 : The Politics of Protest, Oxford University Press, Delhi,
1987.
(2) Words to Win: A Modern Autobiography, Kali for Women, Delhi, 1999
(3) Hindu Wife, Hindu Nation: Religion, Community, Cultural Nationalism, Delhi,
Indiana and London, 2000 (30 co-authored with Basu et al, Khaki Shorts and
Saffron Flags : A Critique of the Hindu Right, Delhi, 1993
(4) Co-edited with Urvashi Butalia, Women of the Hindu Right, Delhi, 1995. Has
also written extensively in Indian and international acadamic journals on 19th
century social and cultural histories, subaltern movements in 2oth century
Bengal, Hindu militarism in contemporary India. Involved with Delhi-based womens'
and secular organisations.
Aleyamma Vijayan
Aleyamma Vijayan has a Master degree in Social Work (MSW). She started working
with the destitute children and the aged in institutional settings. From 1978 to
1995 she worked with the Fishing Communities at various levels and capacities.
She was a staff of an NGO called Programme for Community Organization and was
the coordinator and secretary of this organization for 8 years. She was also
closely associated with the fish-workers movement, which was very active in
1980s. During this period, she gained experience as a community worker, trainer,
in mobilization and advocacy. She has published a training manual on gender in
Malayalam and has written several articles.
She was associated with many organisations including the SEWA (Self Employed
Women’s Association), ICSF (International Collective in Support of Fish
Workers), Streevedi and Sakhi.