Barry Featured in National Webinar on Gender Violence and Religious History

Associate Professor of Religious Studies Jennifer Barry participated in a Soul Speak Press webinar titled What We Inherit: Gender, Faith, and Violence Across Time on January 15, 2026.

This 90-minute roundtable brought together Barry, a child sex trafficking survivor, and a domestic violence survivor for a wide-ranging conversation about the historical roots and contemporary realities of gender violence. The discussion examined how religion, history, and structures of hegemony shape the ways societies understand — and at times silences — experiences of violence.

Drawing on her scholarship in late antique Christianity and gender studies, Barry explored how narratives of power, silence, sanctity, and suffering were constructed in early Christian texts and how those frameworks continue to reverberate today. The conversation emphasized storytelling as a form of witness and intervention, highlighting how historical analysis can illuminate patterns of repeat victimization while also opening space for critique and transformation.

Hosted by Soul Speak Press, the webinar invited participants from across the United States to consider how faith traditions both challenge and sustain gendered harm, and how revisiting these inherited narratives can deepen contemporary conversations about accountability, healing, and justice.

Barry’s participation reflects her ongoing commitment to public scholarship that bridges academic research and pressing social concerns.