Author: Sharon A Bong
School of Arts and Social Sciences, Monash University, Malaysia

I presently teach creative writing and Gender Studies at the School of Arts and Social Sciences, Monash University, Malaysia. My research interests are varied and they include: feminist standpoint epistemologies; rights and sexualities in religions; qualitative researching and analyses using ATLAS.ti.

My multi-disciplinary academic background stems from my shift from dead poets to living communities in moving away from literature in English to Women's Studies and Religious Studies over a decade ago. From textual analysis of extant (literary) texts, I now find greater fulfillment in generating texts (i.e. interview transcripts) and analyzing them qualitatively with the aid of ATLAS.ti, a Computer-Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software.

I first started using ATLAS.ti for my PhD research, over the turn of the century, and I am particularly pleased with this acquired skill as I am a technophobe. In this research project I investigated how Malaysian-based feminists (25 women and two men) negotiate the tension between the rhetoric and practice of rights as contained in women's human rights conventions and their lived realities within multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-religious contexts. The publications resulting from this endeavour include my first book titled, The Tension Between Women's Rights and Religions: The Case of Malaysia (2006, Edwin Mellen Press) as well as book chapters and journal articles on qualitative researching and Grounded Theory methodology.

In my present research project on sexuality and religion, I seek to better understand how GLBTQ (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and queer) persons fully live out their sexuality and spirituality in the context of Malaysia and Singapore. Through qualitative analyses of these living texts, the narratives of persons in same-sex partnerships, I show how they re-imagine not only the meaning of 'marriage' in religion but also religion in 'marriage'.

Contact:
Dr Sharon A Bong
Senior Lecturer, School of Arts and Social Sciences
Monash University,
Jalan Lagoon Selatan
46150 Bandar Sunway
Selangor
Malaysia
E-profile: http://www.sass.monash.edu.my/Staff/sbong.html