Things of the Spirit: Women Writers Constructing Spirituality

by Kristina K. Groover

Overview

In essays on topics ranging from Teresa of Avila's sixteenth-century mysticism to the politicized spirituality of postmodern women writers, the contributors to Things of the Spirit chronicle the development of women's spiritual writing as a context for defining, challenging, and changing women's experiences in the world. They explore the nature of the sacred and women's relationship to the sacred in the writings of women poets, diarists, autobiographers, and fiction writers.

Kristina Groover contends that identifying and analyzing women's spiritual writing relies on redefining the sacred hierarchical structures that dominate the Christian tradition by allowing for spiritualities that are heterogeneous and pluralistic, embracing some aspects of religious tradition while rejecting others, locating the sacred in the material world, emphasizing the sacredness of community, and representing the female body as a site of the sacred.

Groover argues that efforts to reform oppressive religious traditions have led many to turn to sources outside of conventional religious practice for spiritual insights. At this intersection of literary and theological studies, readers and scholars have found a rich tradition of women's spiritual writing stretching back to the earliest women writers. Essays in Things of the Spirit introduce many of these previously suppressed or discounted works to modern readers. This well-written and accessible new book will be useful in courses on women's literature, women and religion, women's spirituality, and religion and literature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780268029623
Publisher:	University of Notre Dame Press
Publication date:	11/01/2004
Pages:	366
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.76(d)

About the Author

Kristina K. Groover is associate professor of English at Appalachian State University.

Editorial Reviews

"Women writers have produced many sacred texts; we as readers are now learning to recognize them," argues Groover (English, Appalachian State Univ.) in this collection of highly literate and erudite female voices that illuminate a hidden, expressive cache of female spirituality embedded within poetry, romance, science fiction, and tragedy. Contributions by 13 different critics analyze these feminist literary productions as pathways into a uniquely gendered experience of transcendence, divinity, and/or the sacred. Only one established female theologian (Teresa of Avila) is included. There are reflections on familiar literary voices (e.g., Christina Rossetti, Emily Dickinson) as well as lesser-known ones (e.g., Audre Lord, Jane Lead, and Ann Bathurst). No one genre or chronological literary period predominates, which requires something of a general awareness of feminist literature and modern female writers. Academic in tone and presentation, these essays can each stand alone; however, most find strength as one of many perspectives on literature as a guide to spirituality. Recommended for women's studies, women's literature, and religion and literature collections. Sandra Collins, Univ. of Pittsburgh Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Kristina Groover's collection of essays on women spiritual writers, Things of the Spirit, uncovers a rich vein of lesser known women mystics or women writers who have not previously been read as spiritual writers. This volume discloses a new way of looking at spiritual experience and writing from a women's perspective.” —Rosemary Radford Ruether, Carpenter Professor of Feminist Theology, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA

“Accessible to the general reader, this volume offers a diverse selection of women's writing centered on spirituality.” —Emily Dickinson International Society Bulletin

“The strength of the collection is that it chronologically demonstrates how women over time, in various contexts, have tested the limits of religious language, expanded and embodied the sacred.” —North Dakota Quarterly

"These 13 essays by women scholars 'chronicle the development of women's spiritual writing as a context fo defining, challenging, and changing women's experiences in the world. They explore the nature of the sacred and women's relationship to the sacred in the writings of women poets, diarists, autobiographers, and fiction writers.'" —Theology Digest

". . . both Groover's Introduction to Things of the Spirit and these thirteen feminist-focused essays on women's spirituality provide important insights into the nature of the sacred as seen over many years through the female consciousness." —Christianity and Literature

From the Publisher