Ashley M. Purpura

Home institution

Purdue University

Research project

Liberating Orthodoxy: Feminism, Faith, and Divine Otherness

This monograph argues Orthodox Christianity can be reframed to liberate tradition from its own patriarchal constraints by privileging continuity with incarnation, resurrection, and theosis. Rereading historical theology and present practices through the lens of a uniquely Orthodox feminist theological critique, I show participation in divine otherness necessitates women’s freedom.

Profile

Ashley Purpura is an Associate Professor of Theology at Purdue University. She received her Ph.D. Fordham University in 2014. She researches the history of Orthodox Christian thought in its Byzantine tradition, and investigates how historical religious practices and ways of thinking shape power structures and complex identities for past and present religious communities. She has published articles on religious authority and conceptions of gender, and her first book, God, Hierarchy, and Power: Orthodox Theologies of Authority from Byzantium (Fordham University Press, 2018) examines the development and maintenance of “hierarchy” as a theological concept. With current projects, Purpura analyzes Orthodox Christian constructions of gender in relation to religious ideals of patriarchy, and the formation of religious identity in ritual contexts.