Bodies and Embodiment: The Somatic Turn in the Study of Religion and Gender

A few years ago, the author switched from working at a Protestant theological faculty to a department of religious studies where the study of religion from an anthropological perspective is dominant. He starts by offering a reflection on the somatic turn in the study of religion and gender, presenting its most relevant disciplinary perspectives. The author moves on to discuss how the study of bodies and embodiment challenges existing ontologies and epistemologies, followed by a section on the limits of and challenges involved in a focus on the body. Over the past few decades, the humanities and social sciences have been witness to a ‘somatic turn’: a turn toward the body as a central category of analysis. The somatic turn in the study of religion has been ongoing for a number of decades now. The somatic turn has had, as the author hope the chapter has demonstrated, an important impact on the study of religion and gender.