Course learning objectives:
--To discern the call to parent
--To reconstruct inheritances
--To survive and thrive while building Beloved Community
(The full syllabus will be emailed to participants.)
REQUIRED TEXTS
Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Frontlines
edited by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, China Martens, and Mai'a Williams
--AND
Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organizing for Reproductive Justice
2nd edition by Jael Silliman, Marlene Gerber Fried, Loretta Ross, and Elena Gutierrez
--OR
Reproductive Justice: An Introduction by Loretta J. Ross and Rickie Solinger
I Asked for Intimacy: Stories of Blessings, Betrayals, and Birthings by Renita J. Weems
My Baby Rides the Short Bus: The Unabashedly Human Experience of Raising Kids with Disabilities
edited by Yantra Bertelli and Jennifer Silverman (PM Press)
Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God by Kelly Brown Douglas
Don't Leave Your Friends Behind: Concrete Ways to Support Families in Social Justice Movements and Communities edited by Victoria Law and China Martens (PM Press)
--Weekly reading averages 15-30 pages.
--Each week's assigned reading can be emailed to you if you can't access it online or at your library.
--Please support these authors' and independent presses' work by buying new whenever you can.
NOVEMBER
WELCOME
Do you have a favorite story in the Bible? A story that most disturbs you?
Learning objective: To perceive narrative strands related to family and gender in your life story.
Week One – Childless Stories
Question: What has come up for you around being single, childless, or childfree in the past?
Week Two – Mothering Stories
Question: What linkages or differences do you see with your own story of family and parenting?
Week Three – Fathering and Genderqueer Parenting Stories
Question: What does patriarchy mean to you in relation to family and parenting?
Week Four – The Bible's Stories
Question: What is your religious background if any, and how has it shaped your view of gender? Other traditions?
Online – Introductions
Bring a poem or picture to share
DECEMBER
VIRGIN
Bible study – Luke 1 and Matthew 1
"Unbegrudged Blessings" from Just a Sister Away: A Womanist Vision of Women's Relationships in the Bible by Renita J. Weems (16 pages)
Learning objective: To get to know Mary and Joseph as multifaceted parents and spiritual companions.
Week One – Mary of Nazareth
Question: What approach(es) to Mary are most familiar to you? Most appealing? Most troubling?
Week Two – Guadalupe
Question: How has Mary lived on in history and moved into new cultural contexts?
Week Three – Mariam
Question: What did Mary's culture, religion, and political circumstance mean to her?
Week Four – Parthenogenesis
Question: How might Mary's parenthood look from transgender points of view?
Online – Your story part I
Continue sharing poems or pictures
JANUARY
BAPTISM
Bible study – Luke 2 and (optional) Christian apocryphal texts
Learning objective: To discern ethical principles regarding your child's identity and body.
Week One – Intactivism
Male and female circumcision
Question: What does circumcision mean to Americans? Christians? Jews? Muslims? You?
Week Two In Person – Weekend retreat in Sheep Ranch, CA
Topic: Your child's body
Guest presentations at the retreat may include recordings made by:
-An HIV+ intersex activist from the gay men’s community in San Francisco
-A cisgender man who is restoring his penis after genital mutilation experienced in a US hospital
-A gender expansive individual who began their gender-affirmation journey during childhood
-A “movement grandpa” who leads child naming and welcoming ceremonies
Question: What kinds of choices should a parent have about their child's body?
Week Three – Gender and sexuality
Question: How will you raise your child?
Week Four – Ability and neurodiversity
Disabilities
Question: Again, how will you raise your child?
Week Five – Race and culture
Transracial/transnational adoption
Question: And once more, how will you raise your child?
No online meeting
FEBRUARY
WILDERNESS
Sacred text – Maryam’s story in the Qu'ran, Chapter 19
“’Mary, Allah has chosen you’ (Koran 3.42): The Islamic Conception of Mary” by Ludwig Hagemann (10 pages) (translated from German)
Begin reading Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Frontlines
Learning objective: To grow in compassion for yourself and others' pain surrounding parenting.
Week One – Difficult decisions
Question: How does your relationship with your mother, grandmother, or friend's mothers shape your feelings about yourself, your future children, women in general?
Week Two – Reproductive loss, change, and transition
Question: When have you been forced to revise your life narrative?
Week Three – Trauma and abuse recovery
Transformative justice and child sexual abuse
Question: What does it mean to bear intergenerational trauma?
Week Four – Environmental harms and ecological collapse
Question: What do you fear most about the future?
Online – Your story part II
Continue sharing poems or pictures
MARCH
RESURRECTION
Bible study – Luke 23-24
Learning objective: To grieve injustice on the way to birthing new systems.
Week One – Good Friday and Holy Saturday
Trauma theology
Question: When have you found yourself at the foot of the cross?
Week Two – Racial Justice
Womanist theology
Question: How are mothers of color witnessing to the resurrection?
Week Three – Reproductive choice and consent
Articles by Latishia AV James, M.Div.
Question: What do choice and consent mean to you?
Week Four - Reproductive Justice
"Preface to the 2nd Edition," "Preface to the 2004 Edition," and "Chapter One" in Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organizing for Reproductive Justice 2nd edition by Jael Silliman, Marlene Gerber Fried, Loretta Ross, and Elena Gutierrez (30 pages)
Question: How is the Reproductive Justice framework lifegiving for you?
Online – Guest speaker Latishia AV James, M.Div. on resurrection
APRIL
MOTHER OF THE CHURCH
Bible study – Luke-Acts 1-2
Finish reading Revolutionary Mothering
Learning objective: To find and claim your place in the world and make space for your children.
Week One – Spiritual and ethnic autobiography
Question: What do you wish you knew about your family and/or ancestors?
Week Two - Movement kids
Question: What does child-centered activism look like?
Weeks Three and Four - Partnership, family, community
Question: Have you shared any of your learnings with your lovers, relatives, colleagues? What's next for you?
Online – Your story part III
Bring a written outline or draft of your story
EVALUATION DUE MAY 1, 2018.