Trevor Hart

Alison Jack

Michael Fuller

Vassiliki Kolocotroni

Heather Walton

Ann Loades

Elisabeth Jay

Tibor Fabiny

Margaret Masson

Hannah Marije Altorf

John Reuben Davies

Lori A . Kanitz

Donald Orr

Jeremy J . Smith

These 14 essays by scholars who have worked with David Jasper in both church and academy develop original discussions of themes emerging from his writings on literature, theology and hermeneutics. The arts, institutions, literature and liturgy are among the subject areas they cover.

Conversations with the Work of David Jasper

The End of the Church?

Elaine Graham

Theological Reflections: Methods, offers a comprehensive collection of models of theological reflection. By bringing this diverse collection together in one place, the editors create a unique reference work that allows a clear and visible contrast and comparison as each model is treated formally and in a standard format. Throughout each chapter the distinguishing features of the model are examined, the geneology and origins are discussed, worked examples of the model applied to contemporary theology are provided, and critical commentary, future trends and exercises and questions are provided. Now firmly established as an essential text on theological reflection, this new edition has been revised and updated with a new introduction, updated examples, and refreshed bibliographies

2nd Edition

Theological Reflection: Methods

This book explores current trends in the interdisciplinary study of literature and theology - an area of academic activity that has developed dramatically in the past twenty years. The field of study originated from the impetus to embrace the richness of imaginative resources in theological reflection and was stimulated by the re-emergence of the sacred in contemporary theory. Since the mid '90s critical theory has undergone a number of significant transformations, theology has become a subject of public concern and the boundaries between sacred and cultural texts have become increasingly unstable. This book brings together the work of leading scholars in the field with that of emerging voices. Offering an important resource for the growing number of postgraduate courses exploring the relation between religion and culture in the contemporary context, this book delineates current trends in interdisciplinary debate as well as tracing emerging configurations.

New Interdisciplinary Spaces

Literature and Theology

Veronica della Dora

Alessandro Scafi

Avril Maddrell

This volume provides a theoretically and empirically-grounded study of the significance of landscape in the experience of Christian pilgrimage across different denominations and its intersection with cultural heritage and tourism. The book focuses on pilgrimages to Meteora (Greece), Subiaco (Italy) and the Isle of Man. These are each sites of scenic beauty that boast a rich heritage associated respectively to Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Ecumenical/ Protestant denominations. The study discusses different Christian theologies, practices and perspectives on the nature and the purpose of pilgrimage in these traditions. It draws on participant experiential accounts, archival research, and interviews with clergy, laity and local stakeholders. Special attention is paid to the themes of sacred space and practice, aesthetics, mobilities, embodiment and performance, emotional geographies, theology, cultural heritage, consumption and commodification, and the pilgrim-tourist continuum.

Journeying to the Sacred

Christian Pilgrimage, Landscape and Heritage

Andrew W. Hass

This collection of essays explores the way our notions of self, other, subjectivity, gender and the sacred text are being re-visioned within contemporary theory. These new ways of conceiving create upheavals and radical shifts that rework our understanding of philosophical, psychological, political, sexual and spiritual identity, allowing us to trace the fault lines, regulatory forces, exclusions and unmarked spaces both within our selves, and within the discourses that attend these selves. As such, revisionings break down borders, and the encounter of literature and theology becomes a crucial focus for these explorations, as the self learns to resituate its own being creatively vis-a-vis others and, ultimately, the Other.

Re-visioning the Subject in Literature and Theology

Self/Same/Other

Elizabeth Anderson

Andrew Radford

Concentrating on female modernists specifically, this volume examines spiritual issues and their connections to gender during the modernist period. Scholarly inquiry surrounding women writers and their relation to what Wassily Kandinsky famously hoped would be an ‘Epoch of the Great Spiritual’ has generated myriad contexts for closer analysis including: feminist theology, literary and religious history, psychoanalysis, queer and trauma theory. This book considers canonical authors such as Virginia Woolf while also attending to critically overlooked or poorly understood figures such as H.D., Mary Butts, Rose Macaulay, Evelyn Underhill, Christopher St. John and Dion Fortune. With wide-ranging topics such as the formally innovative poetry of Stevie Smith and Hope Mirrlees to Evelyn Underhill’s mystical treatises and correspondence, this collection of essays aims to grant voices to the mostly forgotten female voices of the modernist period, showing how spirituality played a vital role in their lives and writing.

A Piercing Darkness

Modernist Women Writers and Spirituality

Not Eden represents a challenging new appraisal of the methods, purpose and practice of spiritual life writing. Part 1 examines some of the traditions that have governed spiritual life writing in the past. A dominant assumption, displayed in many confessional texts, has been that spiritual autobiographies chart a journey away from the concerns of this world towards a deeper understanding of the divine. However, alternative forms of spiritual life writing have always existed alongside these authoritative traditions. In these, spirituality appears as deeply interwoven with the fabric of everyday life. It is embodied, contingent and involves deep connections with others. Part 2 consists of a work of spiritual life writing in which the claims made in part one are explored and tested. It constitutes a fully worked example of the way in which spiritual life writing can enable us to face the deepest challenges of this world.

Spiritual Life Writing for this World

Not Eden

Zoë Bennett

Stephen Pattison

Practical theology as a subject area has grown and become more sophisticated in its methods and self-understanding over the last few decades. This book provides a complete and original research primer in the major theories, approaches and methods at the cutting-edge of research in contemporary practical theology. It represents a reflection on the very practice of the discipline itself, its foundational questions and epistemological claims. Each chapter examines different aspects of the research process: starting with experience and practice, aspects of research design and epistemology, communities of learning, the influence of theological norms and tradition on the practice of research, and ethical considerations about what constitutes ‘the good’ in advanced research. The uniqueness of this book rests in its authoritative overview of current practical theological research across a range of traditions and approaches, combined with a comprehensive introduction to research methodology. It offers worked examples from the authors, their colleagues and research students that serve to illustrate key ideas and approaches in practical theological research. The four authors are all internationally-leading scholars and rank amongst the most influential figures in practical theology of their generation. The book promises to be of interest to students, teachers and researchers in practical theology, especially those looking to conduct original practice-based enquiry in the field.

Invitation to Research in Practical Theology

Heather Walton

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