Catherine of Siena College MA Modules

We are delighted to announce that, from this year, we are offering two MA modules validated by the University of Roehampton, in addition to our exciting curriculum of 6 week and 10 week Continuing Professional Development courses. These 20 credit modules run over twelve weeks (10 weeks of teaching and 2 weeks of independent study, tutorials and coursework preparation), and they are taught entirely online.

Understanding Gender: Theology, Language and Incarnation

Course Creator: Prof. Tina Beattie

This online module familiarizes students with theological and theoretical approaches to questions of gender, focusing particularly on language and incarnation/embodiment. It includes perspectives drawn from feminism and gender theory, sacramental and moral theology, and from different cultural approaches to questions of gender, identity and sexuality. It aims to equip students with skills of critical analysis informed by an ethically responsible and pastorally responsive approach to complex and contested issues of gender, asking what insights can be gained from the Christian theological tradition with regard to the significance of gender for the incarnation, the doctrine of creation, and human identity and relationality.

Gender and Social Justice: African Theological Perspective

Course Creator: Nontando Hadebe

This online module introduces students to African theologies which are concerned with issues of gender and social justice. It invites students to go beyond theologies of inculturation and black liberation theologies to consider how resistance against social injustices has played a critical role in the development of African theologies in the 20th and 21st centuries. This includes the work of women theologians represented by The Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians who have challenged women’s oppression in religion and culture, and the recent emergence of studies which evaluate the negative impact of gendered stereotypes of masculinity on men. It considers issues such as gender-based violence and the situation of sexual minorities in the context of the HIV pandemic, as well as analyzing the significance of gender for the ecological crisis and the ways in which clerical sexual abuse has placed gender at the center of the struggle for social justice. Discussions on these topics will introduce students to the richness, diversity and evolving nature of African theologies and contestations related to terms such as ‘Africa,’ ‘African' and gender.