Bodies of Life: Shaker Literature and Literacies

by Etta Madden

Overview

The Shakers' spiritual literacies, defined through an examination of their reading and writing practices, blur boundaries between traditionally masculine and feminine realms by using reason and emotion and by being innovative as well as traditional. This exploration of the relationship between literary practices and religious life in the 19th century, of such genres as autobiographies, elegies, histories, and doctrinal works, provides new insights into the many ways in which literacy enriches people's lives.

This volume will appeal not only to the growing body of Shaker scholars, but also to researchers interested in American literature and culture, literacy, religious history, and gender studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313303036
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	04/30/1998
Series:	Contributions to the Study of Religion , #52
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.62(d)
Lexile:	1500L (what's this?)

About the Author

ETTA M. MADDEN is Assistant Professor of English at Southwest Missouri State University. She teaches courses in early American literature, from the age of European exploration to the Civil War, as well as courses on autobiographies, essays, and other prose nonfiction. Her interest in literature and culture has centered on religious writing and is beginning to encompass the literature of science.

Table of Contents

Preface
Abbreviations
Introduction
Varieties of Literary Experiences: An Overview of Shaker Reading and Writing
Letters, Spirits, and Bodies: The Shakers' Spiritual Literacies
Doctrinal Guides to Spiritual Literacies: McNemar's Kentucky Revival and Dunlavy's Manifesto
(Ad)Dressing Naked Bodies with Pious Suffering: Writing and Readings of the 1816 Testimonies
Reading, Writing, Race, and Mother-Imagery: The Literacies of Rebecca Cox Jackson and Alonzo Giles Hollister
Preserving the Body in Poetry: The Canterbury Obituary Jourbanal
Private Acts and Possible Worlds: Shaker Literacies at the Turban of the Century
Works Cited
Index

Editorial Reviews

Examines the interaction of reading, writing, and religious belief in the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Coming (the Shakers). The author finds that an increase in literacy, especially after 1850, appears to contribute to an emphasis on individualism and the fragmentation of the church, but also allows them to revise their theology so that they see Shakerism as continuing to grow rather than as in numerical decline. She also argues that multiple kinds of reading and writing reinforces the beliefs of individual Shakers and the church as whole. Through these findings she speculates on the nature of the dialectic between individuals and their communities and between communities and the larger society. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Booknews