TRS 728O Gender in American Catholic Life
The course explores the developing roles, status, influence, contributions, and tensions involving lay persons, vowed religious, and Church officials related to gender issues. The transitions in understandings of men and women from the general culture are considered along with the responses within Catholic culture with its ethnic variations, accommodations to national life, and canonical direction from Church authorities at several levels. The course uses the rapidly developing scholarly literature to address these issues from the Early Republic through the twentieth century.