Contemporary Authors

PERSONAL

Married; children: two.

Wake Forest University, B.A., 1988; University of Georgia, M.A., 1993; University of Virginia, Ph.D., 1998.

ADDRESS

• Office - University of Central Arkansas, 201 Donaghey Ave., Conway, AR 72035

CAREER

University of Central Arkansas, Conway, AR, Honors College, instructor, 1999-2000, assistant professor, 2000-07, associate director, 2000-10, associate professor, 2007-14, professor, 2014–; contributing writer, The A.V. Club.

Knitting.

American Academy of Religion, Center for Process Studies, Southwest Commission on Religious Studies.

Grants from UCA Foundation, American Academy of Religion, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Louisville Institute.

WRITINGS

• The Divine Decision: A Process Doctrine of Election, Westminster John Knox Press (Louisville, KY), 2002
• (Editor, with Jay McDaniel, and contributor) Handbook of Process Theology, Chalice Press (St. Louis, MO), 2006
• Prayer Shawl Ministries and Women's Theological Imagination, Lexington Books (Lanham, MD), 2015
• The Homebrewed Christianity Guide to Being Human: Becoming the Best Bag of Bones You Can Be, Fortress Press (Minneapolis, MN), 2017

Contributor to periodicals, including Theology; Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council; Process Studies; Journal of Religion and Popular Culture; Journal of Religion and Film; and Encounter.

Contributor to books and reference works, including The State of Schleiermacher Scholarship Today: Selected Essays, edited by Edwina Lawler, Jeffery Kinlaw, and Ruth D. Richardson, Edwin Mellen Press, 2006; Handbook of Whiteheadian Process Thought, Vol. 1, edited by Michel Weber and Will Desmond, Ontos Berlag, 2008; Perspectives on Eternal Security: Biblical, Historical, Philosophical, edited by Kirk MacGregor, Wipf and Stock, 2009; Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception, A and B volumes, de Gruyter, 2009; Encyclopedia of Religion and Film, edited by Eric Mazur, Greenwood, 2011; The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, Vol. 18, edited by James G. Thomas, University of North Carolina Press, 2011; and Cosmology, Ecology, and the Energy of God, edited by Donna Bowman and Clayton Crockett, Fordham University Press, 2012.

SIDELIGHTS

A professor of interdisciplinary studies at the University of Central Arkansas, Donna Bowman teaches courses in popular and material culture and their intersections with theology. Bowman studied religion at Wake Forest University, earning a master’s degree at the University of Georgia and her Ph.D. in religious studies at the University of Virginia. Her published work includes books, chapters for textbooks and reference works, and contributions to periodicals and to The A.V. Club, for which she is a contributing writer.  She is also c0-editor with Jay McDaniel of Handbook of Process Theology.

The Divine Decision

In her first book, The Divine Decision: A Process Doctrine of Election Bowman uses the work of Alfred North Whitehead and Karl Barth to develop a synthesized understanding of the doctrine of election as a process between God and the individual. The author discusses Barth’s doctrine of divine election, Whitehead’s philosophy that reality is immaterial and consists not of objects but of processes, and the ways in which these thinkers’ ideas both diverge and converge. 

Bowman explains the differences between process thought, which is primarily secular, and process theology, which sees encounters between God and creation as the primary event of reality. “The construction of a process doctrine of election,” she writes, ” is by necessity also an argument for the theological use of process categories.”

Prayer Shawl Ministries and Women's Theological Imagination

Bowman’s  Prayer Shawl Ministries and Women’s Theological Imagination examines the practice of creating hand-crafted shawls to give to people who are sick or grieving. As the author explains, it is usually women who knit or crochet these sacred objects, just as women also take on the role of creating other sacred textiles such as altar cloths and priests’ vestments. But unlike textiles meant to be used in church rites, prayer shawls are sent out into the community to be given and used by others. The author, who is herself an avid knitter, probes the origin and meaning of domestic work done by women; considers the religious associations of cloth; and discusses the ways in which sewing, knitting, and other kinds of fiber work both inform and are shaped by women’s religious experience. As Bowman argues in the book, the practice of making prayer shawls  can be seen as a form of experiential theology.

In researching the book, Bowman interviewed eight-three women members of prayer shawl ministries. She asked them to discuss the personal meanings they derived from making prayer shawls; how these personal meanings related to the values communicated by their church and group; how the manual process of knitting or crocheting contributed to these meanings; and how these meanings related to the particular experiences of women. Many interview participants mentioned the importance of inclusion in the making of prayer shawls. They pointed out that one of the chief beauties of the prayer shawl ministry was its inclusiveness; the shawls provide warmth and embrace everyone, regardless of ethnicity, religious denomination, or gender. In this way, the shawls emphasize commonalities rather than differences. The creation process is also a dynamic of inclusiveness, as participants bring different skills, ideas, and aesthetic tastes to the group, sharing and learning from each other.

Unconditional love is another of the meanings that shawl makers found in their work. The finished shawls are given without any expectation of reciprocity, and makers are encouraged to see each thread or strand of yarn as a symbolic link between themselves and those who will receive the garments. Shawl makers also explained that they embraced handcrafting as a more spiritual alternative to commercialized economies, and found solidarity and empowerment in the process of creating. Reviewing Prayer Shawl Ministries and Women’s Theological Imagination in Jesus Jazz and Buddhism, Jay McDaniel observed that the book “seeks to disclose the convergences and complexity of ordinary women’s theological thinking and behavior.”

BIOCRIT
BOOKS

• Bowman, Donna, The Divine Decision: A Process Doctrine of Election, Westminster John Knox Press (Louisville, KY), 2002.

PERIODICALS

• Choice, June, 2016. K.M. Simmons, review of  Prayer Shawl Sinistries and Women’s Theological Imagination, p. 1487.

ONLINE

• Jesus Jazz and Buddhism, http://jesusjazzbuddhism.org/ (May 24, 2017), Jay McDaniel, review of Prayer Shawl Ministries and Women’s Theological Imagination.

• Think Christian, https://thinkchristian.reframemedia.com/ (May 24, 2017), Bowman profile.

• University of Central Arkansas Norbert W. Schedler Honors College Web Site, https://honors.uca.edu/ (May 24, 2017), Bowman faculty profile.*