Press Release: International Seminar on Religion & Gender held at MANUU
PressRelease
International Seminar on Religion & Gender held at MANUU
Hyderabad:
The Department of Women Education (DWE), Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU) in collaboration with the Centre for Study & Research (CSR), New Delhi today organized an International Seminar "Religion & Gender: Beliefs, Practices and Beyond".
Dr. Celene Ibrahim, Harvard University/Groton School, USA in her virtual keynote address broke the age-old perception of religion being an oppressive force against women and provided with women-centric interpretation of religious text. While raising some key questions to ponder on the theme she also provided a way forward.
Prof. Syed Ainul Hasan, Vice-Chancellor presided over the inaugural. He pointed out the subtle gender prejudices in English, Urdu and Greek literature, movies and arts. The audience appreciated his critical appraisal of the historical narrative. He underlined a sense of protest in most of the contemporary writings of women as a result of age long oppression against women.
The chief guest, Prof. Arvinder A Ansari, Department of Sociology, JMI in her address welcomed the theme of the seminar and its discussion on the inter-sectionality of Gender and Religion and also problematised the issue in the Indian context. She provided various illustrations in which the prejudice is reflected in society.
The Guest of Honour, Prof. Ajailiu Niumai, Director, Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy (CSSEIP), HCU while sharing her observations and long experiences of research about gender, religion and culture in North East region of India said that all religions basically focuses on equality. Practically it is not so equal, because when we look at leadership, it is mostly men who are the priests. In today's time good numbers of women priests are there in western countries but India has only a handful of women priest.
Dr. Ameena Tahseen, Head, DWE delivered the welcome address and gave a brief introduction about the seminar. Mr. Shujauddin Fahad Inamdar gave brief introduction about CSR. Dr. Shabana Kesar, Assistant Professor, DWE convened the programme.
MANUU Pr 27-10-2022.pdf