Exam Topics B - WGS 352 Women's Religious Narratives E and W

The exam will be written, with one to two-sentence answers, and as covered in the syllabus, will count 10% of your grade. There is only one right answer per question. If there appears to be more than one right answer, pick the best answer.

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Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

• What is Mary Crow Dog's background in terms of her ethnic/racial experience and experience with religion?
• What does she say about what determines one's religion in relation to one's background?
• In what ways does her view of religion differ from those of Kathleen Norris, especially in relation to religious institutions and nature?
  

Broughton Coburn, Nepali Aama

• What is Aama's view of religion, in particular Bhagwan?
• Why does she call America "Amrita"?
• Why would an eighty-four year old Hindu woman like her go on pilgrimage?
• Which Americans does she consider to be religious in ways that are similar to or resonate with her own way of being religious? What are some of the characteristics in this regard?
  

Shinobu Matsuura, Higan: Compassionate Vow

• What is Mahayana Buddhism?
• What is the two-fold truth of form and emptiness?
• How does Matsuura's practice of Shin (Pure Land) Buddhism reflect the two-fold truth?
• In what ways does she fit into the Western feminist view of Shin Buddhism as an androcentric religion?
• In what ways does she not into the Western feminist view of Shin Buddhism as an androcentric religion?

• How is Maura O'Halloran's place in the monastery as a Western woman distinct from that of Japanese women?
  
• How does Maura O'Halloran's view of the Japanese monks change over time in relation to gender-related issues?
• Are there any Japanese women in Pure Heart, Enlightened Mind who are depicted as enlightened? Who, and what makes them "enlightened"?
  

• In what ways might Joan Fraces Casey's journey through MPD be regarded as spiritual or religious?
• In what sense does she emerge at the end of the book as a new person, or even as reborn?