The end of the 20th century saw an explosion in scholarship on the religious experiences of women. The contributors to this volume believe that more sophisticated studies at higher levels of theoretical analysis are now needed. Their essays involve the close reading of situations in which women are given or denied authority in ritual and interpretive situations. This approach involves not only how women are represented by Indian texts, but several other perspectives: how the particular strategies of debate about women are carried on, how women are depicted as negotiating certain kinds of authority, and how women might resist particular kings of traditional authority in certain colonial and post-colonial situations. Including work by such scholars as Stephanie Jamison, Vasudha Narayanan, and Ann Grozdins Gold, this collection should be useful to all interested in feminist studies of Hinduism.