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Robin Rinehart and her Women, Religion, and Society class will host a brown bag presentation on “From Footbinding to Botox: Beauty or Manipulation? Women’s Bodies and Religion” noon today at Interfaith Chapel, Hogg Hall.
Lunch may be purchased for $3 or charged to a flex account.
Associate professor of religious studies, Rinehart says some general themes to be discussed include how different religions define and regulate women’s bodies and the comparison with current American attitudes about women’s bodies. Students from her Women, Religion, and Society class will lead the discussion.
“The students in the course were studying women’s roles in Asian religions, and were particularly struck by a video that showed a Chinese woman who had bound her feet as a young woman, a practice that is no longer followed,” says Rinehart. “I asked them to write a short paper considering whether such body practices were similar to the United States’ craze for plastic surgery, Botox injections, and the many television shows that portray these. They found the comparison very interesting and wanted to bring the discussion to a wider audience.”
Rinehart is editor of Contemporary Hinduism: Ritual, Culture, and Practice, an undergraduate textbook that examines the contemporary practices, beliefs, and issues of one of the oldest religions, both within its Indian homeland and throughout the world. She also is the author of One Lifetime, Many Lives: Swami Rama Tirtha and the Experience of Modern Hindu, articles in books published by the Oxford and Princeton University Presses, and other publications in academic journals. She has shared her research through more than 20 lectures and conference presentations, including a talk at the International Conference on World Peace in Ahmedabad, India, and several addresses to the American Academy of Religion.
Along with her own research, Rinehart has worked with over 20 Lafayette students in independent study and honors thesis projects. She uses several languages in her research, including French, German, Hindi, medieval Hindi, Urdu, Panjabi, medieval Panjabi, Sanskrit, and Bengali.
Recipient of Lafayette’s Jones Faculty Award for superior teaching and scholarship, Rinehart has received a summer seminar fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities, an Advanced Study Grant to participate in the Columbia-UC Santa Barbara Summer Program in Punjab Studies, based in Chandigarh, India, and numerous other fellowships and grants.