• Capella University
  
• Governors State University
  
• Iowa Department of Education
  
• Kamehameha Schools
  
• Regent University
  
• Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
  
• University of Houston - Clear Lake
  
• University of Pittsburgh
  
• Utah State University
  
• Virtual High School

University of Houston - Clear Lake
The Sacred Feminine in Latin America
 

Submitted by: Teresa Van Hoy and Azalea Boehm

"Our students at the University of Houston-Clear Lake are so grateful to Blackboard! They can now take history courses on-line with no loss of rigor and content. My course filled in less than one hour, so I raised the caps five times. The retention rate exceeded my average for face-to-face courses. Most poignantly, for many women, it was the first time they could take a summer course because they had not been able to afford babysitters to attend class. Blackboard's user-friendly tools permit faculty to reach under-served and much-deserving students, thereby honoring the mission of our university, of our profession." (Theresa Van Hoy)

The Sacred Feminine in Latin America examines pre-Christian, Christian, and non-Christian practices to explore ways in which the feminine has been revered and demonized in Latin America. It also examines those expressions of femaleness and faith deemed non-Christian. These include goddesses, orishas, curanderas, women tried by the Inquisition, and androgynous figures. Underpinning the course are larger questions of how notions of purity, piety, dishonor, and heresy have been constructed in heavily gendered terms in Latin America, the Latino/latinaUS, and beyond. It provides insights into the ways in which political power and access to resources in Latin America are shaped by notions of the sacred, with particular attention to gendered notions of divinity.