Just as a mirror captures a large area within its small limit, this journal reflects the otherwise far-ranging and far-reaching phenomena that are categorized as "women and religion." The Annual Review of Women in World Religions has been conceived as a forum for the latest historical and anthropological research on women in all religions. It is also a form for discussion of contemporary trends, such as the influence of secularism, fundamentalism, or feminism on women and religion. Accordingly, it contributes to the on-going project to add to our basic knowledge about women, and helps evaluate the past as well as the present through insights generated by gender studies today.

Within the boundaries of academic scholarship, the editors seek to include the research of those who are both inside and outside the traditions. Moreover, the book encourages women and men of all beliefs to participate in the on-going dialogue which it represents and promotes. This journal is polymethodic, interdisciplinary, and multitraditional in its approach to the study of women and religion. It not only allows the comparative dimension to appear in bolder relief, but also helps to establish a dialogue between the two solitudes of humanistic and social scientific studies in the field.

Volume III contains the following essays: Rabi'ah as Mystic, Muslim and Woman by Barbara Lois Helms; Slighted Grandmothers: The Need for Increased Study of Female Spirits and Spirituality in Native American Religions by Jordan Paper; Women of Medieval South India in Hindu Temple Ritual: Text and Practice by Leslie C. Orr; and Confucianism and Women in Modern Korea: Continuity, Change and Conflict by Edward Y. J. Chung.