Women, Sainthood, and Power OOL
Osher Online - Winter | Registration opens 11/23/2026 12:00 AM EDT
This course explores the lives of female saints through the lens of several intellectual disciplines. We will discuss remarkable women in the context of their historical times and cultural backgrounds, exploring an international gallery of female saints such as Joan of Arc, Teresa of Avila, Rose of Lima, Frances Cabrini, and others. These women’s stories reveal strong characters, different from the trite depiction of female saints as silent, obedient, and submissive. We will learn how and why their strategies of resistance and accommodation to authority and to normative women’s roles are relevant today. If you are interested in psychology, women’s and gender studies, history, religion, or cultural and ethnic studies, this course is for you.
Course Trailer: Women, Sainthood, and Power (Vimeo)
Note: Registration for the Summer Osher National Online courses will close on Tuesday, January 6, 2027.
Osher Online™ courses are not recorded.
Oliva Espin
Oliva Espín, PhD, is Professor Emerita of Women’s Studies at San Diego State University and the California School of Professional Psychology. She completed her postdoctoral work at Harvard and is a pioneer in feminist therapy with women from diverse cultural backgrounds. Her recent books include Women, Sainthood, and Power: A Feminist Psychology of Cultural Constructions and My Native Land is Memory: Stories of a Cuban Childhood (2021 San Diego Book Award). She received APA’s Outstanding Lifetime Contributions to Psychology Award.