Assistant Professor of Religious Studies Amy L. Allocco recently published an article titled “From Survival to Respect: The Narrative Performances and Ritual Authority of a Female Hindu Healer," in the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion.
An article written by Amy L. Allocco, an assistant professor in the Department of Religious Studies, was recently published in the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion (JFSR) 29.1. Titled “From Survival to Respect: The Narrative Performances and Ritual Authority of a Female Hindu Healer,” the article draws on ethnographic fieldwork that Allocco conducted in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. In it Allocco analyzes the discursive strategies that a female Hindu healer named Valliyammal employs to create and maintain her ritual authority in both her domestic shrine and in public temple spaces, where she occupies a religious leadership role that is unusual for single women. Located at the intersection of feminist theory and studies in religion, the JFSR is the oldest interdisciplinary, interreligious feminist academic journal in religious studies and is published twice annually.