Hi folks,

I am studying at SOAS and am trying to decide what units to take next year. I am considering taking a unit in gender and religion, but have some hesitations which basically stem from my initial perceptions of gender theory. I’ll try and explain what I mean.

One type of theory I keep coming across seems to have arisen out of a psychoanalytic background and seems especially popular in literary theory. I find this very puzzling, as psychoanalysis has been become little more than an historical footnote in the history of psychology within the field of psychology itself – a discipline that has many female as well as male adherents. So how can we base our methodology on this foundation ?

My second problem is more personal, but as a Buddhist I am particularly influenced by the philosophy of the Mahayana and consider it to be the best description of the way things are that I have encountered. By contrast, I am not a big fan of post-modernism, as it seems obsessed with what buddhist philosophy would call absolute truth and has a potential to get caught in a never-ending spiral into the void of subjectivity – a problem which is guarded against from the outset in Mahayana philosophy with the notion of relative truth. It seems to me a lot of contemporary feminist theory is based on post-modern theory.

Although I appreciate I may be misrepresenting post-modernism, can anyone point me towards any feminist / gender theorists who do not derive their inspiration from psychoanalytic or post-modern backgrounds ?

Many thanks in advance,

Dan J