Grant
Proposal
The Women, Religion, and Globalization Program is a
collaboration between the MacMillan Center, the Yale Divinity School, and
Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Yale, funded by the Luce
Foundation. It will explore the relationship between women religious
practitioners and political, economic, and social developments, both locally
around the world and in the larger context of international affairs.
“This initiative presents a unique approach to understanding the role of
religion in international affairs, and I am delighted that the Luce
Foundation recognized this,” said Ian Shapiro, Henry R. Luce Director, The
Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies. “I am
particularly pleased that faculty from many disciplines and institutions
across the campus will be engaged in this undertaking.
”The principal investigators for the program are Cheryl Doss, Lecturer,
International Affairs and Economics; Associate Chair, International Affairs
Council; Serene Jones, Titus Street Professor of Theology, Divinity School;
Acting Chair, Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies; and Laura Wexler,
Professor of American Studies, and Professor of Women's Gender &
Sexuality Studies.
“The goal of the Women, Religion, and Globalization program is to train our
eyes to see different actors and events when they scan the stage of world
affairs, and in light of this, to imagine new ways of configuring diplomatic
and policy-oriented responses,” said Professor Wexler. “We expect that
there are numerous instances where policy analysts and policy-makers at the
international level miss important explanations for the outcomes of
international events because they do not see the ways that women living their
faith shape the context of such events.”
“Women engaged in the religious practices that comprise daily life – praying,
cooking, teaching, healing —these are not images that we normally associate
with ‘politics,’” said Professor Jones. “But in today’s globalizing
world, we are increasingly aware that they are -- that both religion and
women are powerful forces at work in the international relations and that our
global future cannot help but be enhanced by our growing understanding of
each. Making that happen is the work of this collaborative grant.”
Through a faculty colloquium, the Women, Religion, and Globalization program
will broaden and strengthen university-wide faculty conversations and
research agendas about the role of religion and gender in the processes of
globalization. By creating three new courses for the Masters in
International Relations, it will open graduate and professional training to
these new issues and approaches.
To link the academic, policy, and practice realms of international affairs,
the program will host three fellows annually, including community leaders,
clergy, activists, development workers, scholars, policy analysts and
practitioners from geographically, religiously, and culturally diverse
locations. The Fellows will lead a workshop at the end of each academic
year to explore the pragmatic policy implications for international relations
of the issues raised in the faculty colloquium and graduate seminars.
The program on Women, Religion, and Globalization is made possible through
funding from the Henry Luce Foundation’s Henry R. Luce Initiative on Religion
and International Affairs. Yale was one of a small number of International
Relations schools selected in a competition among all the Association of
Professional Schools of International Affairs (APSIA) institutions. The
Foundation sought to encourage innovative approaches to training future
policymakers in the role that religion plays in foreign affairs and
globalization.
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