Abstract
While this book brings together the largely secular field of feminist studies and religious and theological feminism to trouble the rigidity of the wave metaphor, it began in the same way I imagine other feminist projects take shape: by wondering how mainly theoretical issues, discussed in the scholarly literature, relate to women’s lived experiences. In this case, feminism is a deeply bibliophilic movement that uses women’s writing and feminist fiction to forward social critique and change.1 As Maria Lauret chronicles, it is a form of “oppositional literature” that can “contest both dominant meanings of gender and standards of literariness” (1994, p. 4) and has heavily influenced feminism’s development. More specifically, there are close sets of theoretical interactions between reading, feminism, and spirituality on which this book is grounded, and which prompted me to make explicit the experiences of real readers.
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For example, see A. Diamond and L. R. Edwards, eds., The Authority of Experience: Essays in Feminist Criticism (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988 [1977])
C. Belsey and J. Moore, eds., The Feminist Reader: Essays in Gender and the Politics of Literary Criticism (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989)
S. Mills and L. Pearce, eds., Feminist Readings/Feminists Reading (London: Prentice Hall, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1996)
J. Newton and D. Rosenfelt, eds., Sex, Class and Race in Literature and Culture (London: Methuen, 1985).
For example, Phyllis Trible (“Depatriarchalizing in the Biblical Tradition,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 41 (1973): 30–48
Phyllis Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality [Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1978]
Phyllis Trible, Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives [Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1984])
Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow (“Introduction: Womanspirit Rising,” in Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion, ed. C. P. Christ and J. Plaskow [San Francisco: Harper Collins San Francisco, 1992b (1979)], pp. 10–11
This overview only suggests the scope of feminist theology’s readings of women’s writing. For example, Mary Grey (Redeeming the Dream: Feminism, Redemption and Christian Tradition [London: SPCK, 1989])
George Eliot, Doris Lessing, and Alice Walker; Patricia Bastida Rodríguez, “Rethinking Female Sainthood: Michèle Roberts’ Spiritual Quest in Impossible Saints,” Feminist Theology. 15(1) (2006): 70–83
M. Soraya García Sanchez, “Michèle Robert’s Protagonists: Catholicism and Sexuality,” Feminist Theology 17(2) (2009): 229–44
Anna Fisk (Sex, Sin and Our Selves: Encounters in Feminist Theology and Contemporary Women’s Writing (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2013))
Heather Ingman (Women’s Spirituality in the Twentieth Century: An Exploration through Fiction [Berlin: Peter Lang, 2003])
This overview is admittedly brief, and is more concerned with the development of feminist theology in an Anglo-American context. For further examples, see C. Beyer, “Feminist Revisionist Theology and Female Identity in Margaret Atwood’s Recent Poetry,” Literature and Theology 14(3) (2000): 276–98
C. P. Christ, “Feminist Studies in Religion and Literature: A Methodological Reflection,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 44(2) (1976a): 317–25
C. P. Christ, “Margaret Atwood: The Surfacing of Women’s Spiritual Quest and Vision,” Signs: Journal of Women and Culture 2(2) (1976b): 316–30
C. P. Christ, Diving Deep and Surfacing: Woman Writers on a Spiritual Quest (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1995 [1980])
C. P. Christ and C. Spretnak, “Images of Spiritual Power in Women’s Fiction,” in The Politics of Women’s Spirituality: Essays by Founding Mothers of the Movement, ed. C. Spretnak (New York: Doubleday, 1982)
M. Grey, Redeeming the Dream: Feminism, Redemption and Christian Tradition (London: SPCK, 1989)
L. Hogan, From Women’s Experience to Feminist Theology (Sheffield: Sheffield University Press, 1995)
M. D. Kamitsuka, Feminist Theology and the Challenge of Difference (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007)
A. S. Ostriker, Feminist Revision of the Bible (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993)
A. S. Ostriker, The Nakedness of the Fathers: Biblical Visions and Revisions (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1994)
R. R. Ruether, ed., Womanguides: Readings toward a Feminist Theology (Boston: Beacon Press, 1985)
K. Sands, Escape from Paradise: Evil and Tragedy in Feminist Theology (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1994)
H. Walton, “Re-vision and Revelation: Forms of Spiritual Power in Women’s Writing,” Feminist Theology 12(1) (2003a): 89–103
H. Walton, “Women Writing the Divine,” in Feminist Philosophy of Religion: Critical Readings, ed. P. S. Anderson and B. Clack (London: Routledge, 2003b)
H. Walton, Literature, Theology and Feminism (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007a)
H. Walton, Imagining Theology: Women, Writing and God (London: T & T Clark, 2007b)
H. Walton, “Our Sacred Texts: Literature, Theology and Feminism,” in Reading Spiritualities: Constructing and Representing the Sacred, ed. D. Llewellyn and D. F. Sawyer (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008).
K. Cannon, Black Womanist Ethics (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1988)
K. Cannon, “Moral Wisdom in the Black Women’s Literary Tradition,” in Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality, ed. J. Plaskow and C. P. Christ (San Francisco, Harper and Row, 1989)
K. Cannon, Katie’s Canon: Womanism in the Soul of the Black Community (London: Continuum, 2003 [1995])
E. Culpepper, “New Tools for Theology: Writings by Women of Color,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 4(1) (1988): 39–50
M. P. Beckman and M. E. Donaldson, “The Theological Significance of The Color Purple: A Liberation Theology?” Saint Luke’s Journal of Theology 33(2) (1990): 119–28
S. Thistlethwaite, Sex, Race, and God (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1989)
D. S. Williams, “Black Women’s Literature and the Task of Feminist Theology,” in Immaculate and Powerful: The Female in Sacred Image and Social Reality, ed. C. W. Atkinson, C. H. Buchanan, and M. R. Miles (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1985).
M. A. Alvarez, “Spiritual Themes and Identities in Chicana Texts: The Virgin of Guadalupe as Role Model for Womanhood,” in Reading Spiritualities: Constructing and Representing the Sacred, ed. D. Llewellyn and D. F. Sawyer (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008).
R. Harde, “Making Our Lives a Study: Feminist Theology and Women’s Creative Writing,” Feminist Theology 15(1) (2006): 48–69
S. H. Hughes, “‘Eye to Eye’: Using Women’s Literature as Lenses for Feminist Theology,” Literature and Theology 16(1) (2002): 1–26.
This is a departure from Wolfgang Iser’s (The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response, [Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980 (1978)])
Earlier, I commented that C. Eller (Living in the Lap of the Goddess: The Feminist Spirituality Movement in America [Boston: Beacon Press, 1993])
Steven J. Sutcliffe (“The Dynamics of Alternative Spirituality: Seekers, Networks, and ‘New Age’,” in The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements, ed. J. R. Lewis [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004])
For historical and thematic definitions of the field of religion and literature, see D. H. Helsa, “Religion and Literature: The Second Stage,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 46(2) (1980): 181–92
D. Jasper, The Study of Literature and Religion (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1989)
S. B. Kauffman, “Charting a Sea Change: On the Relationships of Religion and Literature to Theology,” Journal of Religion 58(4) (1978): 405–27.
A. J. Morey, “Margaret Atwood and Toni Morrison: Reflections on Postmodernism and the Study of Religion and Literature,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 60(3) (1992): 493–513.
W. K. Wimsatt and M. C. Beardsley, in The Verbal Icon: Studies in the Meaning of Society (Kentucky: University of Kentucky Press, 1954)
See R. Barthes, “The Death of the Author,” in Authorship: From Plato to the Postmodern, ed. S. Burke (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995 [1979])
M. Foucault, “What Is an Author?” Language, Counter-Memory Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews by Michel Foucault (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977 [1969])
For influential overviews of reader response theory, see A. Bennett, ed., Readers and Reading (Harlow: Longman, 1995a)
A. Bennett, “Introduction,” in Readers and Reading, ed. A. Bennett (Harlow: Longman, 1995b)
E. Freund, The Return of the Reader: Reader-Response Criticism (London: Methuen, 1987)
R. C. Holub, Reception Theory: A Critical Introduction (London: Methuen, 1984)
V. B. Leitch, “Reader Response Criticism,” in Readers and Reading, ed. A. Bennett (Harlow: Longman, 1995a)
J. P. Tompkins, Reader-Response Criticism: From Formalism to Post Structuralism (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980a)
J. P. Tompkins, “An Introduction to Reader Response Criticism,” in Reader Response Criticism: From Formalism to Post-Structuralism, ed. J. P. Tomkins (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980b)
S. R. Suleiman and I. Crosman, eds., The Reader in the Text: Essays on Audience and Interpretation (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1980a)
S. R. Suleiman, “Introduction: The Varieties of Audience-Orientated Criticism,” in The Reader in the Text: Essays on Audience and Interpretation, ed. S. R. Suleiman and I. Crosman (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1980b).
D. Bleich, Subjective Criticism (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978)
D. Bleich, “Gender Interests in Reading and Language,” in Gender and Reading: Essays on Readers, Texts, and Contexts, ed. E. A. Flynn and P. P. Schweickart (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986)
D. Bleich, “Epistemological Assumptions in the Study of Response,” in Reader-Response Criticism: From Formalism to Post Structuralism, ed. J. P. Tomkins (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980 [1978])
N. Holland, “Unity Identity Text Self,” in Reader-Response Criticism, ed. J. P. Tompkins (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980 [1975])
E. A. Flynn, “Gender and Reading,” in Gender and Reading: Essays on Readers, Texts, and Contexts, ed. E. A. Flynn and P. P. Schweickart (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986)
S. Mills, “Reading as/Like a Feminist,” in Gendering the Reader, ed. S. Mills (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1994c).
J. Hermes, Reading Women’s Magazines: An Analysis of Everyday Media Use (Cambridge: Polity, 1995)
J. A. Radway, Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy and Popular Literature (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991 [1984])
L. Pearce, Feminism and the Politics of Reading (London: Arnold, 1997).
J. Bielo, “Recontextualising the Bible in Small Group Discourse,” in SALSA XIV: Texas Linguistics Forum, vol. 50, ed. T. Hallett, S. Floyd, S. Oshima, and A. Shield (Austin: Texas Linguistics Forum, 2007)
J. Bielo, “Cultivating Intimacy: Interactive Frames for Evangelical Bible Study,” Fieldwork of Religion 3(1) (2008a): 51–69
J. Bielo, “On the Failure of ‘Meaning’: Bible Reading in the Anthropology of Christianity,” Culture and Religion 9(1) (2008b): 1–21
J. Bielo, “The ‘Emerging Church’ in America: Notes on the Interaction of Christianities,” Religion 30 (2009): 1–14
M. Jennings, Dan’s Stories: His Situated Use of the Bible in Reconceptualizing His Sexual Abstinence Incident as Spiritual Experience (BSA Sociology of Religion Study Group: Religion and Knowledge, Durham University, 2009)
M. A. Pike, “From Personal to Social Transaction: A Model of Aesthetic Reading in the Classroom,” Journal of Aesthetic Education 37(2) (2003a): 61–72
M. A. Pike, “The Bible and the Reader’s Response,” Journal of Education and Christian Belief 7(1) (2003b): 37–51
M. A. Pike, “Transactional Reading as Spiritual Investment,” Journal of Education and Christian Belief 11(2) (2007): 83–94
A. Strhan, Aliens and Strangers: The Struggle for Coherence in the Everyday Lives of Evangelicals (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015)
A. Village, “Factors Shaping Biblical Literalism: A Study Among Anglican Laity,” Journal of Beliefs and Values 26(1) (2005a): 29–38
A. Village, “Assessing Belief about the Bible: A Study among Anglican Laity,” Review of Religious Research 46(3) (2005b): 243–54
A. Village, The Bible and Lay People (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007).
Recent studies that do consider women’s reading practices with their sacred texts, both Islamic and Christian, include Raana Bokhari “Bihishti Zewar: A Text for Respectable Women?” in Reading Spiritualities: Constructing and Representing the Sacred, ed. D. Llewellyn and D. F. Sawyer (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008)
Anne Heng Grung, Researching Women and Religion: Christian and Muslim Women Reading Sacred Texts (Lancaster: Women Reading Religious Texts, Lancaster University, 2009).
See Ursula King, The Search for Spirituality (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2009)
P. Sheldrake, Spirituality and History: Questions of Interpretation and Method (London: SPCK, 1991)
P. Sheldrake, A Brief History of Spirituality (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007).
There is extensive literature on women, feminism, and spirituality. Well-established works include (but are not restricted to) A. Carr, “On Feminist Spirituality,” in Women’s Spirituality: Resources for Christian Development, ed. J. W. Conn (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1986)
C. P. Christ and J. Plaskow, eds., Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion (San Francisco: Harper, 1992a [1979])
J. W. Conn, ed., Women’s Spirituality: Resources for Christian Development (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1986)
U. King, Women and Spirituality: Voices of Protest and Promise (Basingstoke: Macmillan Education, 1989)
J. Plaskow and C. P. Christ, eds., Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality (San Francisco: Harper, 1989a)
C. Spretnak, ed., The Politics of Women’s Spirituality: Essays by Founding Mothers of the Movement (New York: Anchor, Doubleday, 1982)
Starhawk, The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess (San Franciso: Harper & Row, 1979)
K. Zappone, The Hope for Wholeness: A Spirituality for Feminists (Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third Publications, 1991).
K. Aune, “Feminist Spirituality as Lived Religion: How UK Feminists Forge Religiospiritual Lives,” Gender and Society 29(1) (2015): 122–45
C. Klassen, Feminist Spirituality: The Next Generation (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2009a)
For examples of feminist spiritual and religious movements outside of a Western context, see U. King, ed., Religion and Gender (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995a)
U. King and T. Beattie, eds., Gender, Religion, and Diversity: Cross-Cultural Perspectives (London: Continuum, 2005a)
U. King, “‘Gendering the Spirit’: Reading Women’s Spiritualities with a Comparative Mirror,” in Reading Spiritualities: Constructing and Representing the Sacred, ed. D. Llewellyn and D. F. Sawyer (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008).
L. M. Russell and S. J. Clarkson, eds., A Dictionary of Feminist Theologies (London: Mowbary, 1996)
S. Briggs and M. M. Fulkerson, The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).
Although “post-Christian” might be used to designate a society that has moved from Christianity to secularity, this usage too crudely dismisses the ongoing influence of Christianity (and other religious and nontraditional religions and spiritualities) within society and culture. The term has also been explored in relation to Christian feminism and other “post-theories,” meaning either the temporal juncture of late modernity, or practices of deconstruction within feminist theologies (L. Isherwood and K. McPhillips, eds., Post-Christian Feminisms: A Critical Approach [Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008]). More broadly, in the study of religion, “post-secular” is sometimes employed to theorize the simultaneous forces of secularization and religious resurgence in the public sphere, but it is contested J. Beckford, “Public Religions and the Postsecular: Critical Reflections,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 51(1) (2012): 1–19
E. Graham, Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Public Theology in A Postsecular Age (London: SCM Press, 2013)
J. Habermas “Religion in the Public Sphere,” European Journal of Philosophy, 14(1) (2006): 1–25.
In brief, D. Hampson, Theology and Feminism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990)
D. Hampson, After Christianity (London: SCM Press, 1996)
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© 2015 Dawn Llewellyn
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Llewellyn, D. (2015). Reading, Feminism, and Spirituality. In: Reading, Feminism, and Spirituality. Breaking Feminist Waves. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137522870_2
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