Revolution in the convent : women religious and American popular culture, 1950-1971

• Main Author: Sullivan, Rebecca.
• Other Authors: Robinson, Gertrude J. (advisor)
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: McGill University 1999
• Subjects: Nuns > United States.; Women in mass media.; Monastic and religious life of women > United States.; Monasticism and religious orders for women > United States.
• Online Access: http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=36062

The purpose of is dissertation is to bring together theories of gender, religion and the mass media in an analysis of the representation of American Catholic women religious in popular culture from 1950 till 1971. In so doing, I argue for the development of research frameworks in feminist cultural studies which acknowledge those women who sought alternatives to dominant positions of marriage and motherhood, but who did not reject outright traditional notions of femininity. Furthermore, I suggest that claims to religious virtuosity have been a source of moral and political authority for women in the past. Through such claims, women have gained greater access to educational and professional opportunities during eras of incipient feminism. I link the reform efforts of sisters in the fifties and sixties to two concurrent movements: the rise of the second wave of feminism, and the modernization of the American Catholic church according to the initiatives set forth by the Second Vatican Council (1962--1965). Together, these three areas provide a context for the analysis of the meanings and values mediated by the representation of nuns in films, television, popular literature and music. The wide-spread interest in the religious life for women by all areas of the mass media occurred at a time when American society was undergoing massive shifts not only in gender relations but also in terms of how religion was valorized. Images of nuns seemed to help audiences negotiate the changes in the discourses surrounding gender, religious and national identity. At the same time, American sisters were struggling with their own sense of identity as women and as members of the Catholic church. This conflict between images and identity for women religious highlights a number of issues within feminist cultural studies. Not the least of which is articulating the relationship between history, agency and ideology in theories of women's cultural representation in ways which can take into ac