Etuoikeutettu sukupuoli? : Käsitys auktoriteetista Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenzan feministisessä teologiassa

A Priviledged Gender? The Question of Authority in the Feminist Theology of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. Elisbeth Schüssler Fiorenza (b. 1938) is one of the pioneers of Christian feminist theology. The aim of this study is to analyze what she understands by the authority of women as (re)interpreters of the Bible and the Christian tradition. The research method is conceptual analysis, and the sources consist of Schüssler Fiorenza s key writings from 1975 to 2006. The starting point of the study is Schüssler Fiorenza s definition of the task of feminist theology as claiming women s intellectual-religious authority. It is assumed that the issue of authority offers an angle from which Schüssler Fiorenza s feminist theology can be understood as a whole. It is also supposed that the notion of authority opens up a perspective on the way Schüssler Fiorenza dialogues with non-theological feminist theory in her writings. The analysis is first directed to five key concepts of Schüssler Fiorenza s work: authority, patriarchy, androcentrism, gender and women-church, i.e. the ekklesia of wo/men. Special attention is given to her gender-theoretical considerations and her neologism wo/men, by which she refers to women and marginalized men. The aim of this conceptual analysis is to clarify her thought on the subjects of feminist theology. In addition, Schüssler Fiorenza s dialogue with other feminist scholars is evaluated. It is argued that eclecticism characterizes her way of treating non-theological feminist theory. Rewriting early Christian history from a feminist perspective is at the core of Schüssler Fiorenza s scholarship. From her early writings on, she argues for women s authority to define the Christian religion, past and present. In the 1990s Schüssler Fiorenza s theoretical background is feminist standpoint epistemology, and she represents feminist women as an epistemologically priviledged group. Later she claims to defend the epistemic authority of all those wo/men women and men who want to produce emancipatory knowledge. The analysis of Schüssler Fiorenza s work on feminist biblical interpretation shows that her stated aim to regard both women and men as subjects of feminist theology is not realized in the actual descriptions of her hermeneutical model. In fact, Schüssler Fiorenza argues for the authority of feminist women to interpret the Bible in their own interests . Thus in her work, women seem to figure as representatives of the priviledged gender in the field of biblical and theological knowledge.

Kuka kasvattaa, kuka opettaa? : Genealoginen tutkimus perheen ja koulun välisen kasvatusvastuun politiikasta

FAMILIES AND SCHOOLS AND THE POLITICS OF RESPONSIBILITIES - a genealogical study on family and school as carers and educators of the child population in modern society This study aims to uncover the politics behind such discourses in the media which have claimed the family to be totally responsible for children and which ignore the various responsibilities accorded to the state in matters concerning the child population. Using Max Weber s and Michael Mann s theorizing on the history of power relationships, feminist social history on patriarchy and Foucauldian power analytic concept of dispositif the study traces two competing child policies which have influenced the historical formation of modern generational order in Western societies. One of them is based on the interests of the hegemonic bourgeois elite and the other on the interests of the non-elite population, which were expressed during the phase of building the welfare state in Finland in the 1960 1980 s. The central strategies of the bourgeois child policy are 1) to construct the childhood years as a time for preparation and formation of the individual according to the interests of the elite, 2) to construct the family as the sole site of holistic care and responsibility of children in society, and 3) compulsory schooling of children of the non-elite population in state organized schools. To implement these strategies the elite uses strategically patriarchal cultural formations/dispositifs in modernized versions. The result has been the formation of a sexually divided and hierarchical order of care and education, where, on the one hand, there is the less important feminine care of children done by mothers at home and, on the other, the real education of the school, where children are made the object of authoritarian shaping and where the needs and the personal experiences of the child are ignored. The welfare order of care and education is based on the ethos of welfare society, where the state and the families are seen to share the responsibility for the child population. In this vein, families and schools are seen as partners who both have a caring attitude to children s welfare and learning. The study shows that discourses and terminology in the mainstream educational policy texts in Finland create a chaotic linguistic game which makes it difficult to have a rational discussion about the roles of family and school in the holistic care and education of children. This has opened the door to political discourses where familist interpretations of the question of responsibility are claimed to be based on law.

Evil Gods and Reckless Saviours : Adaptation and Appropriation in Late Twentieth Century Jesus-Novels

Late twentieth century Jesus-novels search after a completely new picture of Jesus. Novels written for instance by Norman Mailer, José Saramago, Michèle Roberts, Marianne Fredriksson, and Ki Longfellow provide an inversive revision of the canonic Gospels. They read the New Testament in terms of the present age. In their adaptation the story turns often into a critique of the whole Christian history. The investigated contrast-novels end up with an appropriation that is based on prototypical rewriting. They aim at the rehabilitation of Judas, and some of them make Mary Magdalane the key figure of Christianity. Saramago describes God as a blood thirsty tyrant, and Mailer makes God combat with the Devil in a manichean sense as with an equal. Such ideas are familiar both from poststructuralist philosophy and post-metaphysical death-of-God theology. The main result of the intertextual analysis is that these scholars have adopted Nietzschean ideas in their writing. Quite unlike earlier Jesus-novels, these more recent novels present a revision that produces discontinuity with the original source text, the New Testament. The intertextual strategy is based on contradiction. The reader wittnesses contesting and challenging, the authors attack Biblical beliefs and attempt to dissolve Christian doctrines. An attack on Biblical slave morality and violent concept of God deprives Jesus of his Jewish Messianic identity, makes Old Testament law a contradiction of life, calls sacrificial soteriology a violent pattern supporting oppression, and presents God as a cruel monster who enslaves people under his commandments and wishes their death. The new Jesus-figure contests Mosaic Law, despises orthodox Judaism, abandons Jewish customs and even questions Old Testament monotheism. In result, the novels intentionally transfer Jesus out of Judaism. Furthermore, Jewish faith appears in a negative light. Such an intertextual move is not open anti-Semitism but it cannot avoid attacking Jewish worship. Why? One reason that explains these attitudes is that Western culture still carries anti-Judaic attitudes beneath the surface covered with sentiments of equality and tolerance. Despite the evident post-holocaust consciousness present in the novels, they actually adopt an arrogant and ironical refutation of Jewish beliefs and Old Testament faith. In these novels, Jesus is made a complete opposite and antithesis to Judaism. Key words: Jesus-novel, intertextuality, adaptation, slave morality, Nietzsche, theodicy, patriarchy.