Care Work Is Not Conditional

Contingent Labor and “Vocation” in Theological and Religious Studies

Datos Bibliográficos

ID8201333
AutoresSeonju Koh (0000-0003-0599-8650, Humanities Center, University of California, Irvine, 1112 Humanities Gateway, Irvine, CA 92697-3375, USA, autor de correspondencia), Franklin Tanner Capps (0000-0002-5704-2469, The Miller Youth Institute, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, 616 N Highland Ave., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15206, USA)
Año2022
Volumen90
Número3
Páginas539-553
Fecha de publicación2022-12-31
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of the American Academy of Religion (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0002-7189 • E-ISSN: 1477-4585
EditorialOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/jaarel/lfac073
OpenAlexW4317931251
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas10

This article is written for people working in the related fields of theological and religious studies, speaking directly to the issue of contingency as a feminist question of care. It acknowledges how cisgendered women in the academy often bear the bulk of caring for others, but goes further, interrogating how care discourses structurally inform the contingent worker’s material realities. Contingency raises the question of the value of the humanities, of which theological and religious studies are a part. Framed as a question of “vocation,” Max Weber argues that the humanities scholar’s work should be oriented to research, rather than moral transformation. A critical and feminist analysis of care, then, unveils contingent labor as a kind of care work that supports masculinist attachments to the tenure track faculty position as the pinnacle of effort and scholarship. The article offers first steps toward constructive recommendations for the issues that we identify

Constructive · Contingency · Epistemology · Political science · Scholarship · Sociology · Value (mathematics) · Work (physics) · Law · Philosophy · Religion, Gender, and Enlightenment · Theological Perspectives and Practices