Public Lecture

South African Pentecostalism and the Gendered Politics of HIV Prevention

Dr. Katherine Attanasi

7:00pm, Monday October 24. 2011

Dauch 115

What should a woman do if her husband is unfaithful and yet her church says not to use condoms and not to get a divorce?

The Religion Department as part of the CAS Symposium Against Global Indifference presents a public illustrated lecture by Dr. Katy Attanasi. Pentecostalism is the fastest growing form of Christianity in developing countries. Paralleling Pentecostalism's growth has been the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Attanasi conducted fieldwork in two communities in post-apartheid South Africa.  Drawing on her fieldwork, she employs feminist methodologies to examine the responses of black South African Pentecostal women to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. She found their complex situations to be based on distorted theologies of gender, prosperity, and healing. She suggests a prevention strategy that coheres with Pentecostal theology and better accounts for women's situations. She argues that listening to the voices of women in the global South provides important perspective to western development agencies and denominations.

Katy Attanasi is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Regent University (PhD. Vanderbilt University). She recently completed work on a co-edited volume with Amos Yong entitled Pentecostalism and Prosperity: The Socio-economics of the Global Charismatic Movement (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, forthcoming).