Nineteenth-Century American Women Writers and Theologies of the Afterlife: A Step Closer to Heaven (Routledge Research in American Literature and Culture)

"This collection analyzes the theme of the 'afterlife' as it animated nineteenth-century American women's theology-making and appeals for social justice. Authors like Harriet Beecher Stowe, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Martha Finley, Jarena Lee, Maria Stewart, Zilpha Elaw, Rebecca Cox Jackson, Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Belinda Marden Pratt, and others wrote to have a voice in the moral debates that were consuming churches and national politics. These texts are expressions of the lives and dynamic minds of women who developed sophisticated, systematic spiritual and textual approaches to the divine, to their denominations or religious traditions, and to the mainstream culture around them. Women do not simply live out theologies authored by men. Rather, Nineteenth-Century American Women Writers and Theologies of the Afterlife: A Step Closer to Heaven is grounded in the radical notion that the theological principles crafted by women and derived from women's experiences, intellectual habits, and organizational capabilities are foundational to American literature itself." (Verlagsinformation) Cover Half Title Series Information Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents List of Figures Author Biographies Editor Biographies Contributor Biographies Acknowledgments Introduction The Volume: A Step Closer to Heaven Part I: (god)mothers of Theology: Harriet Beecher Stowe and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Part II—self-Made Theologies: Black Women’s Autobiographical Writings Part III: Women and Utopian Theologies Notes Works Cited Works Consulted Part I (god)mothers of Theology: Harriet Beecher Stowe and elizbeth Stuart Phelps 1 Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Christian Scholar?: A Touch of Feeling in The Gates Ajar Notes Works Cited 2 Heaven As a Potential Space: Elizabeth Stuart Phelps’ Afterlife Novels Notes Works Cited 3 Rewriting Heaven: Salvation and the Afterlife in the Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Notes Works Cited 4 The Archetypal Girl Savior and the Child Theologian: Harriet Beecher Stowe’s... Little Eva’s Theology, Purpose, and Impact Elsie Dinsmore’s Theology, Purpose, and Impact Two Evangelical Stories, Two Child Heroines, and Two Legacies Notes Works Cited Part II Self-Made Theologies: Black Women’s Autobiographical Writings 5 “As to the Nature of Uncommon Expressions”: Jarena Lee’s Supernatural Worldview in The Life and Religious Experience of Jarena Lee Notes Anchor 38 Works Cited 6 Conversion and Counter-Memory: Jarena Lee, Maria Stewart, and the Spiritual... Notes Works Cited 7 “What Absurdity Next?”: The Precarious Pulpits of Zilpha Elaw, Black Woman Evangelist (1820–65) Notes Works Cited 8 “Aleaving the World, the Flesh, and the Devil”: Spiritual Vision and Celibate Holiness... Notes Works Cited Part III Women and Utopian Theologies 9 Discovering the Soul of the new Republic: The Early Fiction... A New-England Tale; Or Sketches of New-England-New-England Character and Manners (1822): Egalitarian... Resistance, Survival, Continuance: Native American Women and Christianity in Hope... Soul Survivors Notes Works Cited and Consulted 10 “The Family Order of Heaven”: Belinda Marden Pratt’s Apology for Polygamy Notes Works Cited 11 Theologies of the Afterlife in Mormon Women’s Late-Nineteenth-Century Poetry The Woman’s Exponent and Women Writing Poetry A Material and Social Heaven Combining Anthropocentric and Theological Visions of Heaven Creating Their Own Visions of Heaven Conclusion Notes Works Cited 12 Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Brook Farm, and the Heaven of Association Notes Works Cited Index This collection analyzes the theme of the "afterlife" as it animated nineteenth-century American women’s theology-making and appeals for social justice. Authors like Harriet Beecher Stowe, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Martha Finley, Jarena Lee, Maria Stewart, Zilpha Elaw, Rebecca Cox Jackson, Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Belinda Marden Pratt, and others wrote to have a voice in the moral debates that were consuming churches and national politics. These texts are expressions of the lives and dynamic minds of women who developed sophisticated, systematic spiritual and textual approaches to the divine, to their denominations or religious traditions, and to the mainstream culture around them. Women do not simply live out theologies authored by men. Rather, __Nineteenth-Century American Women Writers and Theologies of the Afterlife:__ __A Step Closer to Heaven__ is grounded in the radical notion that thetheological principles crafted by women and derived from women’s experiences, intellectualhabits, and organizational capabilities are foundational to American literature itself.