“Extremely lively and super-smart, this Feminist Companion is indeed the friend you want to sit beside in every social psychology class.” Alexandra Rutherford, Professor, Historical, Theoretical and Critical Studies of Psychology, York University, Canada “Madeleine Pownall and Wendy Stainton Rogers’ book pings with the vibrancy and creativity of feminist critique. With this companion, they have made feminist inspiration, analysis, and activism easily accessible to everyone studying social psychology!” Virginia Braun, Professor of Psychology, The University of Auckland, New Zealand “The Feminist Companion was written for undergraduate readers, but it holds much wisdom for us all.” Jeanne Marecek, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, USA The Feminist Companion series includes books which act as your friends and mentors in book form, supporting you in your studies, especially when things get tough. This companion offers a feminist, critical, better-informed understanding of social psychology; what it knows, what it can deliver – and what it can’t. Ultimately, it will help you gain a deeper understanding of the data, analytic tools and theoretical frameworks that inform Social Psychology, as well as empowering you to develop the capacity and authority to challenge assumptions and become a critical and engaged social psychologist. Key features include: •Five Reasons Why You Need a Feminist Companion – a helpful summary of what readers can expect to gain from this book •Activity boxes, suggesting ways you can put the theory you are learning in to practice •See and Hear for Yourself boxes, signposting readers to where they can find real-world examples of the concepts covered •Summary sections that articulate the main points of each chapter and provide a useful revision aid •A glossary of key terms This book maps to the British Psychological Society (BPS) curriculum on social psychology as well as the Quality Assessment Agency’s (QAA) Subject Benchmark Statement for Psychology. Madeleine Pownall is a lecturer in Social Psychology, Research Methods, and Advanced Social Psychology at the University of Leeds, UK. She is Chair of the Psychology Postgraduate Affairs Group (PsyPAG) and an Associate Editor at The Psychologist. Wendy Stainton Rogers is Emeritus Professor at The Open University, UK, and a member of the Open University Press Editorial Advisory Board. Across her career she has written ten bestselling books, the majority of which are for Psychology students. She is renowned for her clear-sighted and accessible writing style, as well as for her innovative work in Critical Psychology.

“If you are interested in lived experience and meaning making, or want to think more creatively about psychology, this text is utterly invaluable.” Paula Reavey, Professor of Psychology and Mental Health, London South Bank University, UK “This book provides a wonderful, gently provocative, critical companion to the standard psychological curriculum!” Professor Virginia Braun, School of Psychology, Waipapa Taumata Rau/The University of Auckland, NZ “This is essential reading for all undergraduate and applied psychology courses.” Professor Erica Burman, University of Manchester, UK, editor of Feminists and Psychological Practice and co-author of Challenging women: psychology’s exclusions, feminist possibilities The Feminist Companion series includes books which act as your friends and mentors in book form, supporting you in your studies, especially when things get tough. This companion offers a better-informed understanding of research methods, exploring key topics such as ethics, reproducibility, reliability and validity, and research design through a feminist lens. The ethics of research relationships are explored, alongside issues to do with prejudices and biases implicated in psychology’s treatment of women. Ultimately, this book aims to develop your critical and analytical skills by encouraging a questioning approach to understanding how psychological knowledge is produced, and by offering alternative, feminist-informed approaches to framing research questions, adopting data collection techniques, and analysing and interpreting data. Key features of this book include: • Five Reasons Why You Need a Feminist Companion – a helpful guide to what readers can expect to gain from this book • Activity boxes, suggesting ways you can put the theory you are learning into practice • See and Hear for Yourself boxes, signposting readers to where they can find real-world examples of the concepts covered • Summary sections that articulate the main points of each chapter and provide a useful revision aid • A glossary of key terms The book maps to the British Psychological Society (BPS) curriculum on research methods as well as the Quality Assessment Agency’s (QAA) Subject Benchmark Statement for Psychology. Hannah Frith is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Surrey, UK. She is the current editor the British Psychological Society journal Psychology of Women and Equalities Review. Rose Capdevila is Professor of Psychology at The Open University. She has been co-editor of the journal Feminism & Psychology and Chair of the Psychology of Women and Equalities section of the BPS.

“Hubbard and Hegarty have provided a lively and accessible antidote to malestream history.” Alexandra Rutherford, Professor, Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, Canada “Katherine Hubbard and Peter Hegarty give students and researchers a much-needed accessible and lively feminist overview of the too-often neglected history of gender studies in psychology as well as pressing theoretical and conceptual issues.” Stephanie A. Shields, Professor Emeritx, Psychology and Women’s Gender, The Pennsylvania State University – University Park, US “This book introduces some of the enduring issues in psychology, but with a contemporary twist, including plenty of rich examples with real people, helping to bring the discipline of psychology to life, warts and all”. Hel Spandler, Professor of Mental Health Studies, University of Central Lancashire, UK The Feminist Companion series includes books which act as your friends and mentors in book form, supporting you in your studies, especially when things get tough. This companion offers crucial support for anyone embarking on a feminist journey through Psychology’s past and present. It offers a uniquely critical, inclusive and affirmative approach to understanding gender in Conceptual and Historical Issues in Psychology (CHIP). By accessibly presenting knotty and entangled topics, this book promises to ignite your curiosity and get you asking questions. The book empowers you to build up a feminist toolkit for action and invites you to critically analyse the history of Psychology in order to gain a unique feminist perspective that can help you challenge and address the gender inequalities that remain in the discipline. Key features include: Five Reasons Why You Need a Feminist Companion – a helpful guide to what readers can expect to gain from this book Learning objectives to tell you what the chapter will cover and how it relates to what you’ve learned so far Key questions to help put the theory you are learning into practice Summary sections that articulate the main points of each chapter and provide a useful revision aid A glossary of key terms This book maps to the British Psychological Society (BPS) curriculum on Conceptual and Historical Issues in Psychology as well as the Quality Assessment Agency’s (QAA) Subject Benchmark Statement for Psychology. Katherine Hubbard is Senior Lecturer at the University of Surrey, UK. Her research and teaching are interdisciplinary, including psychological, historical and sociological components which focus on gender, sexuality and queer studies. She takes an affirmative and inclusive approach and specialises in queer feminist histories of Psychology. Peter Hegarty is Professor of Psychology at the Open University, UK. He is a social psychologist and historian-psychologist who has often argued that human behaviours deemed intelligent, such as language, scientific thinking, and moral reasoning, are invidiously shaped by gender, sexuality and sex norms beyond psychologists’ awareness.

This volume in the acclaimed feminist companion to the bible series, edited by Athalya Brenner, draws together a range of leading biblical commentators to discuss one of the most challenging and fascinating biblical texts for feminist interpretation, the book of Genesis.

A Feminist Companion to Tobit and Judith extends the work of the hugely influential and respected Feminist Companion series, which continues to set the standard for feminist approaches to the Hebrew Bible and related texts. In the present volume Athalya Brenner-Idan (with Helen Efthimiadis-Keith) draws together a range of scholarly commentators and addresses the core issues relating to feminist interpretations of the two texts at hand. The volume examines attitudes to gender, identities, exile, social mores, beliefs, clothing, food and drink, personal relationships, and biblical reception. The contributors are: Beverly Bow and George Nickelsburg, Athalya Brenner-Idan, Ora Brison, Helen Efthimiadis-Keith, Renate Egger-Wenzel, Beate Ego, Emma England, Jennifer Glancy, Jan Willem van Henten, Naomi Jacobs, Amy-Jill Levine, Pamela Milne, and Barbara Schmitz.

A Feminist Companion to Reading the Bible: Approaches, Methods and Strategies forms a conclusion to the series of 10 volumes published in the groundbreaking Feminist Companion to the Bible since 1993. Not only is this the companion to the Companion, but, it is at the same time the forerunner and companion to a second series of nine volumes of the Feminist Companion. In all, there will be a unique collection of 20 volumes representing the enormous range of influence that feminist criticism has come to have in biblical studies. Anchored always in particular biblical texts, the essays in this multi-authored Companion to Reading the Bible have a distinct methodological slant, reflecting the numerous developments in feminist criticism that have occurred since the first books in the series were published, and forming an indispensable handbook for every biblical scholar and student today.

Women in the Hebrew Bible presents the first one-volume overview covering the interpretation of women's place in man's world within the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. Written by the major scholars in the field of biblical studies and literary theory, these essays examine attitudes toward women and their status in ancient Near Eastern societies, focusing on the Israelite society portrayed by the Hebrew Bible.

This study demonstrates the importance of including narrative ethics in a construction of Old Testament ethics, as a correction for the current state of marginalisation of narrative in this discipline. To this end, the concept of identity is used as a lens through which to understand and derive ethics. Since self-conception in ancient Israel is generally held to be predominantly collectivist in orientation, social identity theory is used to understand ancient Israelite identity. Although collectivist sensitivities are important, a social identity approach also incorporates an understanding of individuality. This approach highlights the social emphases of a biblical text, and consequently assists in understanding a text's original ethical message. The book of Ruth is used as a test case, employing a social identity approach for understanding the narrative, but also to model the approach so that it can be implemented more widely in study of the Old Testament and narrative ethics. Each of the protagonists in the book of Ruth is examined in regards to their personal and social self-components. This study reveals that the narrative functions to shape or reinforce the identity of an ancient Israelite implied reader. Since behavioural norms are an aspect of identity, narrative also influences behaviour. A social identity approach can also highlight the social processes within a society. The social processes taking place in the two most commonly proposed provenances for the book of Ruth are discussed: the Monarchic and Persian Periods. It is found that the social emphases of the book of Ruth most closely correspond to the social undercurrents of the Persian Period. On this basis, a composition for the book of Ruth in the Restoration period is proposed.

Biblical scholars often read the Bible with their own interpretive interests in mind, without associating the Bible with the concerns of laypeople. This largely undermines the contributions laypeople can offer from reading the Bible in their own contexts and from their own life experiences. Moreover, such exclusively scholarly reading conceals the role of biblical texts in dealing with current social problems, such as HIV/AIDS-related stigmatization. Hence, the lack of lay participation in the process of Bible reading makes the Bible less visible in various common life situations. In this volume Elia Shabani Mligo draws on his fieldwork among people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) in Tanzania, selects stigmatization as his perspective, and chooses participant-centered contextual Bible study as his method to argue that the reading of texts from the Gospel of John by PLWHA (given their lived experiences of stigmatization) empowers them to reject stigmatization as unjust. Mligo's study shows that Christian PLWHA reject stigmatization because it does not comply with the attitude of Jesus toward stigmatized groups in his own time. The theology emerging from the readings by stigmatized PLWHA, through their evaluation of Jesus' attitudes and acts toward stigmatized people in the texts, challenges churches in their obligatory mission as disciples of Jesus. Churches are challenged to reconsider healing, hospitality and caring, prophetic voices against stigmatization, and the way they teach about HIV and AIDS in relation to sexuality. Churches must revisit their practices toward stigmatized groups and listen to their voices. Mligo argues that participant-centered Bible-study methods similar to the one used in this book (whereby stigmatized people are the primary interlocutors in the process) can be useful tools in listening to the voices of stigmatized groups.

Drawing on recent insights from postcolonial theory and social psychology, Travis B. Williams seeks to diagnose the social strategy of good works in 1 Peter by examining how the persistent admonition to "do good" is intended to be an appropriate response to social conflict. Challenging the modern consensus, which interprets the epistle's good works language as an attempt to accommodate Greco-Roman society and thereby to lessen social hostility, the author demonstrates that the exhortation to "do good" envisages a pattern of conduct which stands opposed to popular values. The Petrine author appropriates terminology that was commonly associated with wealth and social privilege and reinscribes it with a new meaning in order to provide his marginalized readers with an alternative vision of reality, one in which the honor and approval so valued in society is finally available to them. The good works theme thus articulates a competing discourse which challenges dominant social structures and the hegemonic ideology which underlies them.