Changemakers: A History of Women's Leadership (CH2070P)

Content

This unit traces women's leadership in theology, ecclesiology, biblical interpretation, and social activism. With a focus on changemakers in the 1800s and 1900s, we bring Protestant women's experience into conversation with theological and historical contexts. We research the life and work of women who have been marginalised by history, and we examine the reasons for historical erasure while rediscovering the ways in which they led change in the church. We seek to understand local lived experience in transnational context and examine the foundations of contemporary feminist theologies. We undertake original research to tell a story of women changemakers.

Learning outcomes

Unit sequence

18 pts of History or CT in Feminist Theology

Pedagogy

Seminars and discussion facilitating inquiry-based learning in which students undertake primary-source research

Indicative Bibliography

Indicative reading list

• Dzubinski, Leanne M., and Anneke H. Stasson. Women in the Mission of the Church: Their Opportunities and Obstacles throughout Christian History. Baker Academic, 2021.
• Fulkerson, Mary McClintock, and Sheila Briggs. The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theology. Oxford University Press, 2012.
• Isherwood, Lisa and Megan Clay, eds. Women in Christianity in the Modern Age (1920 - today). Routledge, 2021.
• Levison, John R., and Priscilla Pope-Levison. "Christian Connection Women as Biblical Interpreters in Antebellum America, 1820-1841.” Church History 94, no. 2 (2025): 271–95.
• Miles, Rebekah L. Georgia Harkness: The Remaking of a Liberal Theologian. Westminster John Knox Press, 2010.
• Moreton-Robinson, Aileen. Talkin’ up to the White Woman : Indigenous Women and Feminism. University of Minnesota Press, 2021.
• Muir, Elizabeth Gillan. A Women’s History of the Christian Church: Two Thousand Years of Female Leadership. University of Toronto Press, 2019.
• Pitman, Julia, and Peter Bentley. “Women Ministers before 1977: An Update.” Church Heritage 21, no. 1 (2019): 21–41.
• Schroeder, Joy A., and Marion Ann Taylor. Voices Long Silenced: Women Biblical Interpreters through the Centuries. Westminster John Knox Press, 2022.
• Wootton, Janet, ed. Women in Christianity in the Age of Empire (1800-1920). Routledge, 2022.

Assessment