Can women in interreligious dialogue speak? Productions of in/visibility at the intersection of religion, gender, and race

Abstract

Echoing Gayatri Spivak’s seminal essay, Gruber asks, Can women in interreligious dialogue speak? She develops an answer through an analysis of Theo van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s film Submission and Candice Breitz’s video installation Love Story. Both of these works of art raise questions of representation and agency for marginalized people, and by bringing these questions into conversation with theoretical reflections about women in interreligious dialogue, Gruber charts potential positions of women in the field of interfaith dialogue. The crucial argument is that what position women take in this field depends on their access to epistemic privilege, which is distributed unevenly along gendered, racialized, and religious differentiations—interreligious dialogue takes place at the intersection of male, white, and Christian privilege.