Elaine J. Lawless's Books

Holy Women, Wholly Women

Sharing Ministries Through Life Stories and Reciprocal Ethnography

By: Elaine J. Lawless

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Holy Women, Wholly Women

Sharing Ministries Through Life Stories and Reciprocal Ethnography

By: Elaine J. Lawless

Lawless collects and interprets the stories of ten women ministers and examines their public and private lives, their ministries, their images of God, and their negotiations of sexuality and the religious life.

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Page Count

316

Publisher

University of Pennsylvania Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1512803847

ISBN 13

9781512803846

Reciprocal Ethnography and the Power of Women's Narratives

By: Elaine J. Lawless

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Reciprocal Ethnography and the Power of Women's Narratives

By: Elaine J. Lawless

Folklorist Elaine J. Lawless has devoted her career to ethnographic research with underserved groups in the American Midwest, including charismatic Pentecostals, clergywomen, victims of domestic violence, and displaced African Americans. She has consistently focused her research on women's speech in these contexts and has developed a new approach to ethnographic research which she calls "reciprocal ethnography," while growing a detailed corpus of work on women's narrative style and expressive speech. Reciprocal ethnography is a feminist and collaborative ethnographic approach that Lawless developed as a challenge to the reflexive turn in anthropological fieldwork and research in the 1970s, which was often male-centric, ignoring the contributions by and study of women's culture. Collected here for the first time are Lawless's key articles on the topics of reciprocal ethnography and women's narrative which influenced not only folklore, but also the allied fields of anthropology, sociology, performance studies, and women's and gender studies. Lawless's methods and research continue to be critically relevant in today's global struggle for gender equality.

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Page Count

216

Publisher

Indiana University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0253042984

ISBN 13

9780253042989

Troubling Violence

A Performance Project

By: M. Heather Carver,Elaine J. Lawless

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Troubling Violence

A Performance Project

By: M. Heather Carver,Elaine J. Lawless

Troubling Violence: A Performance Project follows the collaboration between performance studies professor M. Heather Carver and ethnographic folklorist Elaine J. Lawless. The book traces the creative development of a performance troupe in which women take the stage to narrate true, harrowing experiences of domestic violence and then invite audience members to discuss the tales. Similar to the performances, the book presents real-life narratives as a means of heightening social awareness and dialogue about intimate partner violence. “Troubling violence” refers not only to the cultures in our society that are “troubling,” but also to the authors' intent to “trouble” perceptions that enforce social, cultural, legal, and religious attitudes that perpetuate abuse against women. Performance, this book argues, enhances ethnographic research and writing by allowing ethnographers to approach both their field studies and their ethnographic writing as performance. The book also demonstrates how ethnography enhances the study of performance. The authors discuss the development of the Troubling Violence Performance Project in conjunction with their own “performances” within the academy.

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Page Count

169

Publisher

Univ. Press of Mississippi

Published Date

ISBN 10

1604733470

ISBN 13

9781604733471

When They Blew the Levee

Race, Politics, and Community in Pinhook, Missouri

By: David Todd Lawrence,Elaine J. Lawless

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When They Blew the Levee

Race, Politics, and Community in Pinhook, Missouri

By: David Todd Lawrence,Elaine J. Lawless

Winner of the 2019 Chicago Folklore Prize In 2011, the Midwest suffered devastating floods. Due to the flooding, the US Army Corps of Engineers activated the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway, one of the flood prevention mechanisms of the Mississippi Rivers and Tributaries Project. This levee breach was intended to divert water in order to save the town of Cairo, Illinois, but in the process, it completely destroyed the small African American town of Pinhook, Missouri. In When They Blew the Levee: Race, Politics, and Community in Pinhook, Missouri, authors David Todd Lawrence and Elaine J. Lawless examine two conflicting narratives about the flood--one promoted by the Corps of Engineers that boasts the success of the levee breach and the flood diversion, and the other gleaned from displaced Pinhook residents, who, in oral narratives, tell a different story of neglect and indifference on the part of government officials. Receiving inadequate warning and no evacuation assistance during the breach, residents lost everything. Still after more than six years, displaced Pinhook residents have yet to receive restitution and funding for relocation and reconstruction of their town. The authors' research traces a long history of discrimination and neglect of the rights of the Pinhook community, beginning with their migration from the Deep South to southeast Missouri, through purchasing and farming the land, and up to the Birds Point levee breach nearly eighty years later. The residents' stories relate what it has been like to be dispersed in other small towns, living with relatives and friends while trying to negotiate the bureaucracy surrounding Federal Emergency Management Agency and State Emergency Management Agency assistance programs. Ultimately, the stories of displaced citizens of Pinhook reveal a strong African American community, whose bonds were developed over time and through shared traditions, a community persisting despite extremely difficult circumstances.

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Page Count

219

Publisher

Univ. Press of Mississippi

Published Date

ISBN 10

1496817761

ISBN 13

9781496817761

Reciprocal Ethnography and the Power of Women's Narratives

By: Elaine J. Lawless

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Reciprocal Ethnography and the Power of Women's Narratives

By: Elaine J. Lawless

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Page Count

120

Publisher

Indiana University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0253042992

ISBN 13

9780253042996

The Liberation of Winifred Bryan Horner

Writer, Teacher, and Women's Rights Advocate

By: Elaine J. Lawless

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The Liberation of Winifred Bryan Horner

Writer, Teacher, and Women's Rights Advocate

By: Elaine J. Lawless

This inspiring tale of grit and determination sprinkled with humor, wit, and a taste of irony is the story of Winifred Bryan Horner's journey from a life of domesticity on the family farm after World War II to becoming an Endowed Professor. Her compelling story is one of a woman's fight for equal rights and her ultimate success at a time when women were openly deemed "less than" men in the professional world. Winifred, a professional writer and consummate storyteller known to friends and family as Win, always assumed she would write her own memoir. But after retiring from teaching, she found that she could never find the time or inspiration to sit down and record the pivotal stories of her remarkable 92 years of life. Colleague and mentee Elaine J. Lawless devised a plan to interview Win about her life and allow her to tell stories with the intention that Win would edit the transcriptions into her memoir. Over four months, Elaine visited Win on Wednesdays to interview her about her life. Sadly, just one week after the conclusion of the final interview, Win unexpectedly passed away, before Elaine could give her the final transcripts. With the support of Win's family, Elaine set out to finish this book on Win's behalf. Win's story is one that will inspire and resonate with women as they continue to work toward equality in the world.

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Page Count

240

Publisher

Indiana University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0253032369

ISBN 13

9780253032362

Handmaidens of the Lord

Pentecostal Women Preachers and Traditional Religion

By: Elaine J. Lawless

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Handmaidens of the Lord

Pentecostal Women Preachers and Traditional Religion

By: Elaine J. Lawless

Includes life histories of four women preachers, transcriptions of sermons, and analysis by Lawless of both life stories and sermons.

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Page Count

295

Publisher

University of Pennsylvania Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1512803839

ISBN 13

9781512803839

God's Peculiar People

By: Elaine J. Lawless

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God's Peculiar People

By: Elaine J. Lawless

Holy Rollers"—with this epithet most people dismiss members of the Pentecostal sect as wild religious fanatics. In this new study, folklorist Elaine Lawless draws on fieldwork among Pentecostal congregations in the limestone region of southern Indiana to offer a sympathetic view of the Pentecostals as a special group distinguished by their own folk traditions and religious expression. From her findings she describes the members' codes of dress and behavior, their attitudes toward themselves and others, their special use of words, and their distinctive religious practices. Focusing on the activity of a particular church, she then analyzes the structure of the service and shows how its elements—singing, praying, testifying, preaching, and speaking in tongues—exhibit, not a formless display of fervor, but rather an ordered and traditional sequence that creates a unique religious expression. Important to the study is the attention given the role of women. Although the Pentecostal interpretation of Biblical teachings accords men dominance, women occasionally preach in the church and during the testifying part of the service they are often able to exercise control and religious authority. Many of the women have relatives in the dangerous work of the limestone quarries, and for these women the personal experience and close relationship fostered by the Pentecostal church, Lawless finds, offers welcome emotional support. This readable study affords a new understanding of one Pentecostal sect and an appreciation of the role of women in fundamentalist religious practices.

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Page Count

184

Publisher

University Press of Kentucky

Published Date

ISBN 10

0813184169

ISBN 13

9780813184166

Holy Women, Wholly Women

Sharing Ministries Through Life Stories and Reciprocal Ethnography

By: Elaine J. Lawless

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Holy Women, Wholly Women

Sharing Ministries Through Life Stories and Reciprocal Ethnography

By: Elaine J. Lawless

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Page Count

316

Publisher

University of Pennsylvania Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1512803847

ISBN 13

9781512803846

Troubling Violence

A Performance Project

By: M. Heather Carver,Elaine J. Lawless

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Troubling Violence

A Performance Project

By: M. Heather Carver,Elaine J. Lawless

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Page Count

169

Publisher

Univ. Press of Mississippi

Published Date

ISBN 10

1604733470

ISBN 13

9781604733471

Women Escaping Violence

Empowerment through Narrative

By: Elaine J. Lawless

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Women Escaping Violence

Empowerment through Narrative

By: Elaine J. Lawless

The statistics are alarming. Some say that once every nine minutes a woman in the United States is beaten by her spouse or partner. Others claim that once every four minutes a woman in the world is beaten by her spouse or partner. More women go to emergency rooms in the United States for injuries sustained at the hands of their spouses and partners than for all other injuries combined. Shelters for battered women are filled beyond capacity every single day of the year. Despite the overwhelming evidence that violence in our homes is a daily reality, most of us are not willing to acknowledge this private violence or talk about it openly. Women Escaping Violence brings women's stories to the attention of the academy as well as the reading public. While we may be unwilling or unable to talk about the issue of battered women, many of us are ready to read what women have to say about their endangered lives. Considerable scholarship is emerging in the area of domestic violence, including many self-help books about how to identify and escape abuse. Women Escaping Violence offers the unique view of battered women's stories told in their own words, as well as a feminist analysis of how these women use the power of narrative to transform their sense of self and regain a place within the larger society. Lawless shares with the reader the heart-wrenching experiences of battered women who have escaped violence by fleeing to shelters with little more than a few items hastily shoved into a plastic bag, and often with small children in tow. The book includes women's stories as they are told and retold within the shelter, in the presence of other battered women and of caregivers. It analyzes the uses made of these narratives by those seeking to counsel battered women as well as by the women themselves.

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Page Count

273

Publisher

University of Missouri Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0826262678

ISBN 13

9780826262677

Women Preaching Revolution

Calling for Connection in a Disconnected Time

By: Elaine J. Lawless

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Women Preaching Revolution

Calling for Connection in a Disconnected Time

By: Elaine J. Lawless

Do women preach differently than men? In Women Preaching Revolution Elaine J. Lawless contends that they do. Drawing on her study of more than 150 sermons and extensive interviews with the clergywomen who preached them, Lawless argues that women have changed traditional preaching in ways that reflect their socialization as women and their experiences of being female in America. Many of the women in her study were expected to take courses on the art of preaching as part of their seminary training. Most of them rejected the sermon structure and strategies they were taught in seminary, viewing them as part of a "male" homiletic tradition, and developed styles that celebrate their commitment to connection, relationship, and dialogue.

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