This book provides a critical and decolonial analysis of gender and development theory and practice in religious societies through the presentation of a detailed ethnographic study of conjugal violence in Ethiopia. Responding to recent consensus that gender mainstreaming approaches have failed to produce their intended structural changes, Romina Istratii explains that gender and development analytical and theoretical frameworks are often constructed through western Euro-centric lenses ill-equipped to understand gender-related realities and human behaviour in non-western religious contexts and knowledge systems. Instead, Istratii argues for an approach to gender-sensitive research and practice which is embedded in insiders’ conceptual understandings as a basis to theorise about gender, assess the possible gendered underpinnings of local issues and design appropriate alleviation strategies. Drawing on a detailed study of conjugal abuse realities and attitudes in two villages and the city of Aksum in Northern Ethiopia, she demonstrates how religious knowledge can be engaged in the design and implementation of remedial interventions. This book carefully evidences the importance of integrating religious traditions and spirituality in current discussions of sustainable development in Africa, and speaks to researchers and practitioners of gender, religion and development in Africa, scholars of non-western Christianities and Ethiopian studies, and domestic violence researchers and practitioners.

When most of us hear the title Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, we think of Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell’s iconic film performance. Few, however, are aware that the movie was based on Anita Loos’s 1925 comic novel by the same name. What does it mean, Women Adapting asks, to translate a Jazz Age blockbuster from book to film or stage? What adjustments are necessary and what, if anything, is lost? Bethany Wood examines three well-known stories that debuted as women’s magazine serials—Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, and Edna Ferber’s Show Boat—and traces how each of these beloved narratives traveled across publishing, theatre, and film through adaptation. She documents the formation of adaptation systems and how they involved women’s voices and labor in modern entertainment in ways that have been previously underappreciated. What emerges is a picture of a unique window of time in the early decades of the twentieth century, when women in entertainment held influential positions in production and management. These days, when filmic adaptations seem endless and perhaps even unoriginal, Women Adapting challenges us to rethink the popular platitude, “The book is always better than the movie.”

Adapting Gender offers a cogent introduction to Mexico's film industry, the history of women's filmmaking in Mexico, a new approach to adaptation as a potential feminist strategy, and a cultural history of generational changes in Mexico. Ilana Dann Luna examines how adapted films have the potential to subvert not only the intentions of the source text, but how they can also interrupt the hegemony of gender stereotypes in a broader socio-political context. Luna follows the industrial shifts that began with Salinas de Gortari's presidency, which made the long 1990s the precise moment in which subversive filmmakers, particularly women, were able to participate more fully in the industry and portrayed the lived experiences of women and non-gender-conforming men. The analysis focuses on Busi Cortés's El secreto de Romelia (1988), an adaptation of Rosario Castellanos's short novel El viudo Román (1964); Sabina Berman and Isabelle Tardán's Entre Pancho Villa y una mujer desnuda (1996), an adaptation of Berman's own play, Entre Villa y una mujer desnuda (1992); Guita Schyfter's Novia que te vea (1993), an adaptation of Rosa Nissán's eponymous novel (1992); and Jaime Humberto Hermosillo's De noche vienes, Esmeralda (1997), an adaptation of Elena Poniatowska's short story "De noche vienes" (1979). These adapted texts established a significant alternative to monolithic notions of national (gendered) identity, while critiquing, updating, and even queering, notions of feminism in the Mexican context.

Our future depends very much on how we respond to three great challenges of the new century, all of which threaten to increase social inequality: first, how we adapt institutions to the new role of women; second, how we prepare our children for the knowledge economy; and, third, how we respond to the new demography.

Demonstrates how film adaptations intersect with feminist discourse in neoliberal Mexico. Adapting Gender offers a cogent introduction to Mexico’s film industry, the history of women’s filmmaking in Mexico, a new approach to adaptation as a potential feminist strategy, and a cultural history of generational changes in Mexico.Ilana Dann Luna examines how adapted films have the potential to subvert not only the intentions of the source text, but how they can also interrupt the hegemony of gender stereotypes in a broader socio-political context. Luna follows the industrial shifts that began with Salinas de Gortari’s presidency, which made the long 1990s the precise moment in which subversive filmmakers, particularly women, were able to participate more fully in the industry and portrayed the lived experiences of women and non-gender-conforming men. The analysis focuses on Busi Cortés’s El secreto de Romelia (1988), an adaptation of Rosario Castellanos’s short novel El viudo Román (1964); Sabina Berman and Isabelle Tardán’s Entre Pancho Villa y una mujer desnuda (1996), an adaptation of Berman’s own play, Entre Villa y una mujer desnuda (1992); Guita Schyfter’s Novia que te vea (1993), an adaptation of Rosa Nissán’s eponymous novel (1992); and Jaime Humberto Hermosillo’s De noche vienes, Esmeralda (1997), an adaptation of Elena Poniatowska’s short story “De noche vienes” (1979). These adapted texts established a significant alternative to monolithic notions of national (gendered) identity, while critiquing, updating, and even queering, notions of feminism in the Mexican context. “Adapting Gender demonstrates Luna’s considerable skills as a scholar. She deftly carries out a careful analysis of the literary and cinematic texts, putting them in the context of the evolving publishing and film industries. Written in a lively and engaging style, this is a unique synthesis of the evolution of feminism and the roles women have had—indeed, at times, been limited to—in Mexico and what this has meant for their creative output.” — Niamh Thornton, author of Revolution and Rebellion in Mexican Film

Putting gender in a lifespan context, Hatch (sociology, U. of Kentucky) atypically accents the gains as well as losses of aging and sex differences in adaptation overall, to the death of a spouse, and to retirement. From the multifactored theoretical perspectives of symbolic interactionism and polit

This book provides a critical and decolonial analysis of gender and development theory and practice in religious societies through the presentation of a detailed ethnographic study of conjugal violence in Ethiopia. Responding to recent consensus that gender mainstreaming approaches have failed to produce their intended structural changes, Romina Istratii explains that gender and development analytical and theoretical frameworks are often constructed through western Euro-centric lenses ill-equipped to understand gender-related realities and human behaviour in non-western religious contexts and knowledge systems. Instead, Istratii argues for an approach to gender-sensitive research and practice which is embedded in insiders’ conceptual understandings as a basis to theorise about gender, assess the possible gendered underpinnings of local issues and design appropriate alleviation strategies. Drawing on a detailed study of conjugal abuse realities and attitudes in two villages and the city of Aksum in Northern Ethiopia, she demonstrates how religious knowledge can be engaged in the design and implementation of remedial interventions. This book carefully evidences the importance of integrating religious traditions and spirituality in current discussions of sustainable development in Africa, and speaks to researchers and practitioners of gender, religion and development in Africa, scholars of non-western Christianities and Ethiopian studies, and domestic violence researchers and practitioners.