Spera is Hope College’s annual research magazine, a publication that highlights the scholarly accomplishments of Hope’s faculty. This year, the Women’s & Gender Studies program is thrilled to see the work of Dr. Lynn Japinga and Dr. Sarah Kornfield featured in this prestigious publication.
Dr. Lynn Japinga’s new book From Daughters to Disciples features research that developed out of her WGS course on Christian feminism.
“I joke that stories about women are always about either sex, violence, or sex and violence, but I think there’s a lot of substance and significance in these stories,” Japinga says. “People need to hear these stories, because reading about women and their struggles can make the Bible come to life in ways that it doesn’t if all you hear about is the men — even the heroic men.”
Dr. Japinga in Spera Magazine
Dr. Sarah Kornfield’s research on television’s portrayals of #MeToo is a joint project with WGS Major Hannah Jones. Together, they analyzed the narratives and techniques through which television episodes can help end sexual violence.
“People’s sense of ‘normal,’ and thus ‘real,’ are significantly derived from the images and narratives they see in media entertainment,” Kornfield says. “Essentially, the time people spend watching television each day matters. It shapes our thinking, assumptions and expectations … to bring healing, U.S. culture needs to reach new public agreements about what constitutes sexual violence and how to end sexual violence–and not much is more public than television.”
Dr. Kornfield in Spera Magazine