Women writers have made significant contributions to Quebec's ongoing process of cultural self-definition. Because the novel has traditionally played a central role in the construction of national identity, Quebec literary history has seen the continued production of identity narratives, which Jacques Godbout calls the "national text." Using the tools of contemporary feminist criticism and building on a tradition of work on Quebec women's writing, Mary Jean Green considers issues of national and cultural self-definition, situating the literary texts of Quebec women within a unique political and historical context while also relating them to the work of women writing in other cultural situations, from nineteenth-century Europe to the postcolonial francophone world.

Grounded in narrative theory, this book offers a case study of a liberal arts college’s use of narrative to help build identity, community, and collaboration within the college faculty across a range of disciplines, including history, psychology, sociology, theatre and dance, literature, anthropology, and communication. Exploring issues of methodology and their practical application, this narrative project speaks to the construction of identity for the liberal arts in today’s higher education climate. Narrative, Identity, and Academic Community focuses on the ways a cross-disciplinary emphasis on narrative can impact institutions in North America and contribute to the discussion of strategies to foster bottom-up, faculty-driven collaboration and innovation.

Why is it that we tend to think about our lives as stories? Why do we strive to create coherent narratives that reflect a particular perspective? What happens when we discover multiple, perhaps conflicting perspectives in our narratives? Following groundbreaking work in the study of narrative identity in the last 20 years, the scholars of this volume have expanded and merged their theories of narrative identity with new perspectives in fields such as narratology, literary theory, philosophy, cultural studies, psychology, sociology, gender studies and history. Their contributions focus on the significance of perspective in the formation of narrative identities, probing the stratagems and narrative means of individuals in testing out personae for themselves.

In this study Mi-Rang Kang (*1969 in Seoul) investigates the role of women in Korean church life and society and shows possibilities for their empowerment. By transposing Paul Ricoeurs hermeneutics into her own context, she wants to contribute to the formation of Korean Christian women's identity. Along the lines of the book of Ruth she develops a Bible didactical theory for her own church. At the same time the book will also give Western readers an insight into one of the major Presbyterian denominations in Korea, little known so far.

Can a Christian organization with colonial roots work towards reproductive justice for Kenyan women and resist sexist interpretations of Christianity? How does a women's organization in Africa navigate controversial ethical dilemmas, while dealing with the pressures of imperialism in international development? Based on a case study of the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) in Kenya, this book explores the answers to these questions. It also introduces a theoretical framework drawn from postcolonial feminist critique, narrative identity theory and the work of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians: 'everyday Christian ethics'. The book evaluates the theory's implications as a cross-disciplinary theme in feminist studies of religion and theology. Eleanor Tiplady Higgs argues that Kenya YWCA's narratives of its Christian history and constitution sustain a link between its ethical perspective and its identity. The ethical insights that emerge from these practices proclaim the relevance of the value of 'fulfilled lives', as prescribed in the New Testament, for Christian women's experiences of reproductive injustice.

This book is part of the growing field of practical approaches to philosophical questions relating to identity, agency and ethics--approaches which work across continental and analytical traditions and which Atkins justifies through an explication of how the structures of human embodiment necessitate a narrative model of selfhood, understanding, and ethics.

Women, Reconciliation and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict explores the most prominent instances of women’s political activism in the occupied Palestinian territories and in Israel, focussing primarily on the last decade. By taking account of the heterogeneous narrative identities existing in such a context, the author questions the effectiveness of the contributions of Palestinian and Israeli Jewish women activists towards a feasible renewal of the ‘peace process’, founded on mutual recognition and reconciliation. Based on feminist literature and field research, this book re-problematises the controversial liaison between ethno-national narratives, feminist backgrounds and women’s activism in Palestine/Israel. In detail, the most relevant salience of this study is the provision of an additional contribution to the recent debate on the process of making Palestinian and Israeli women activists more visible, and the importance of this process as one of the most meaningful ways to open up areas of enquiry around major prospects for the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Tackling topical issues relating to alternative resolutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this book will be a valuable resource for both academics and activists with an interest in Middle East Politics, Gender Studies, and Conflict Resolution.

This book connects the aging woman to the image of God in the work of Flannery O’Connor, Joyce Carol Oates, Alicia Ostriker, Lucille Clifton, Mary Szybist, and Anne Babson. It introduces a canon of contemporary American women’s spiritual literature with the goal of showing how this literature treats aging and spirituality as major, connected themes. It demonstrates that such literature interacts meaningfully with feminist theology, social science research on aging and body image, attachment theory, and narrative identity theory. The book provides an interdisciplinary context for the relationship between aging and spirituality in order to confirm that US women’s writing provides unique illustrations of the interconnections between aging and spirituality signaled by other fields. This book demonstrates that relationships between the human and divine remain a consistent and valuable feature of contemporary women’s literature and that the divine–human relationship is under constant literary revision.

There are about 34 million people worldwide living with HIV/AIDS. Half are women. There has been a dramatic global increase in the rates of women living with HIV/AIDS. Among young women, especially in developing countries, infection rates are rapidly increasing. Many of these women are also mothers with young infants. When a woman is labeled as having HIV, she is treated with suspicion and her morality is being questioned. Previous research has suggested that women living with HIV/AIDS can be affected by delay in diagnosis, inferior access to health care services, internalized stigma and a poor utilization of health services. This makes it extremely difficult for women to take care of their own health needs. Women are also reluctant to disclose their HIV-positive status as they fear this may result in physical feelings of shame, social ostracism, violence, or expulsion from home. Women living with HIV/AIDS who are also mothers carry a particularly heavy burden of being HIV-infected. This unique book attempts to put together results from empirical research and focuses on issues relevant to women, motherhood and living with HIV/AIDS which have occurred to individual women in different parts of the globe. The book comprises chapters written by researchers who carry out their projects in different parts of the world, and each chapter contains empirical information based on real life situations. This can be used as evidence for health care providers to implement socially and culturally appropriate services to assist individuals and groups who are living with HIV/AIDS in many societies. The book is of interest to scholars and students in the domains of anthropology, sociology, social work, nursing, public health & medicine and health professionals who have a specific interest in issues concerning women who are mothers and living with HIV/AIDS from cross-cultural perspective.

Women, Reentry and Employment: Criminalized and Employable? explores the conflicting discourses about employment for women who are exiting prison. It empirically outlines the landscape of employability supports available to reentering women, the ‘steps to employment’ women are directed to follow, and the barriers to employment they face and theoretically explores the subject positions of criminalized and employable women. This book offers a contemporary contribution to the scholarship of the past three decades that has queried, monitored, and challenged practices and policies relating to women’s corrections in Canada. Based on data gathered about community-based employment supports available to reentering women in Ontario, Canada, exploring how language constructs the subject positions of criminalized and employable women, and bringing into conversation the extensive body of work about women’s employment and employability and reintegration, the book marks a unique but important intersection of these empirical and theoretical domains. Central to the book is the juxtaposition of two key subject positions mobilized in women’s corrections. One is that of the criminalized woman, a subject whose experiences of trauma and marginalization have rendered her emotionally and mentally broken; she is constrained by her past and incapable of acting towards her future. The other subject position is that of the employable woman who is future oriented, confident, and ‘responsible’ for her own socio-economic inclusion. How do reentering women experience, inhabit, and resist these incompatible subject positions? Challenging the invisibilization of women’s experiences in the criminal justice system, Women, Reentry and Employment will be of great interest to students and scholars of Criminology, Penology, and Women’s Studies.