Reading Spiritualities Constructing and Representing the Sacred

The phenomenon of 'sacred text' has undergone radical deconstruction in recent times, reflecting how religion has broken out of its traditional definitions and practices, and how current literary theories have influenced texts inside the religious domain and beyond. Reading Spiritualities presents both commentary and vivid examples of this evolution, engaging with a variety of reading practices that work with traditional texts and those that extend the notion of 'text' itself. The contributors draw on a range of textual sites such as an interview, Caribbean literature, drama and jazz, women's writings, emerging church blogs, Neopagan websites, the reading practices of Buddhist nuns, empirical studies on the reading experiences of Gujarati, Christian and post-Christian women, Chicana short stories, the mosque, cinema, modern art and literature. These examples open up understandings of where and how 'sacred texts' are emerging and being reassessed within contemporary religious and spiritual contexts; and make room for readings where the spiritual resides not only in the textual, but in other unexpected places. Reading Spiritualities includes contributions from Graham Holderness, Ursula King, Michael N. Jagessar, David Jasper, Anthony G. Reddie, Michèle Roberts, and Heather Walton to reflect and encourage the interdisciplinary study of sacred text in the broad arena of the arts and social sciences. It offers a unique and well-focused 'snapshot' of the textual constructions and representations of the sacred within the contemporary religious climate - accessible to the general reader, as well as more specialist interests of students and researchers working in the crossover fields of religious, theological, cultural and literary studies.

Introduction, Deborah F. Sawyer, Dawn Llewellyn; Part I Spiritual Journeys, Dawn Llewellyn; Chapter 1 ‘Getting a/cross god’: An Interview with Michèle Roberts, Michèle Roberts, Dawn Llewellyn, Deborah F. Sawyer; Chapter 2 The Sacred in Caribbean Literature: A Theo logical Conversation, Michael N. Jagessar; Chapter 3 Dramatic Improvisation: A Jazz Inspired Approach to Undertaking Theology with the Marginalized, Anthony G. Reddie; Part II Authority, Dawn Llewellyn; Chapter 4 'Gendering the Spirit': Reading Women's Spiritualities with a Comparative Mirror, Ursula King; Chapter 5 Our Sacred Texts: Literature, Theology and Feminism, Heather Walton; Chapter 6 The Desire for Interactivity and the Emerging Texts of the Blogosphere, Katharine Sarah Moody; Part III Readers and Texts, Deborah F. Sawyer; Chapter 7 Spiritual Themes and Identities in Chicana Texts: The Virgin of Guadalupe as a Role Model for Womanhood, María Antonia Álvarez; Chapter 8 Bihishti Zewar : A Text for Respectable Women?, Raana Bokhari; Chapter 9 Forming Community in the Third Wave: Literary Texts and Women's Spiritualities, Dawn Llewellyn; Part IV Accessing the Spiritual, Deborah F. Sawyer; Chapter 10 Solomon's Narrative: Architecture, Text and the Sacred, Ozayr Saloojee; Chapter 11 Reading Texts, Watching Texts: Mythopoesis on Neopagan Websites, Maria Beatrice Bittarello; Chapter 12 Word and Image: Burgess, Zeffirelli, and Jesus the Man of Nazareth, Graham Holderness; Chapter 13 Do Not Hide Your Face From Me: The Sacred and Profane Body in Art and Modern Literature, David Jasper;

Dawn Llewellyn is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Religious Studies at Lancaster University and is examining the use of 'text' in the development of women's and feminist spiritualities. She has recently contributed to Feminist Spiritualities: The Next Generation (forthcoming) and was the principle conference organiser of Reading Spiritualities (2006). Deborah F. Sawyer is Reader in Religion and Gender and Director of Post Graduate Studies in the Department of Religious Studies, Lancaster University. She has published widely on biblical studies, hermeneutics and the influence of religion on the construction of gender. Her monographs include Midrash Aleph Beth (1993), Women and Religion in the First Christian Centuries (1996), God, Gender and the Bible (2002) and she co-edited (with Paul Morris) A Walk in the Garden: Biblical, Iconographical and Literary Images of Eden (1992), and (with Diane Collier) Is there a Future for Feminist Theology? (1999). She has contributed to the Encyclopedia of Religion, Second Edition, (2004), The Blackwell Companion to the Bible and Culture (2006) and has recently published articles in Theology and Sexuality (2008) and Rivista Biblica (2008).