Seeing into the Life of Things: Essays on Religion and Literature (Studies in Religion and Literature (Fordham University Press), 1.)

As the discourse of contemporary cultural studies brings questions of race, nationality, and gender to the center of critical attention nowadays, there is a strong sense that religious, or perhaps religious experience, should command the attention of the academic and wider reading community. Seeing into the Life of Things is a response to that need. By combining the theoretical and the practical, this book serves as both a pioneering scholarly contribution to a devleoping field and a valuable guide for those who read, reflect on, and discuss points of intersection of religion and literature. The contributors to this pioneering study represent a range of voices and viewpoints, some of them established leaders in their fields, others in the process of becoming new leaders. E. Dennis Taylor, Joseph Appleyard, Philip Rule, John Boyd, and Jane and Charles Rzepka work toward the development of a discourse that can take its place with discourses that have developed around a New Historicism and Feminism. Robert Kiely, Stephen Fix, Keven Van Anglen, J. Robert Barth, Richard Kearney, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Judith Wilt, John L. Mahoney, David Leigh, Melinda Ponder, John Anderson, and Michael Raiger offer more focused approaches to writers as varied as Gerard Manley Hopkins, Katherine Lee Bates, Flannery O'Connor, Wallace Stevens, T.S. Eliot, and Seamus Heaney and to special genres like spritual autobiography and film. Preface / John L. Mahoney -- Pt. 1. Some Theoretical Perspecitves. The Need For A Religious Literary Criticism / Dennis Taylor -- Imagination's Arc : The Spiritual Development Of Readers / J. A. Appleyard -- The Gendered Imagination In Religion And Literature / Philip C. Rule -- The Paschal Action And The Christian Imagination / John Boyd -- Moral Cross-dressing : Contemporary Trends In Liberal Preaching And Literary Criticism / Charles J. Rzepka And Rev. Jane R. Rzepka -- Pt. 2. Some Practical Approaches. The Saint's Underwear : A Postmodern Reflection On The Rule And Life Of St. Benedict With Help From Gregory The Great And Hildegard Of Bingen / Robert Kiely -- Prayer, Poetry, And Paradise Lost : Samuel Johnson As Reader Of Milton's Christian Epic / Stephen Fix -- Reading Transcendentalist Texts Religiously : Emerson, Thoreau, And The Myth Of Secularization / Kevin Van Anglen -- Gender And The Religious Vision : Katherine Lee Bates And Poetic Elegy / Melinda Ponder -- In The Churchyard, Outside The Church : Personal Mysticism And Ecclesiastical Politics In Two Poems By Charlotte Smith / John M. Anderson -- The Sacramental Vision Of Gerard Manley Hopkins / J. Robert Barth -- (cont.) Reading Modern Religious Autobiographies : Multidimensional And Multicultural Approaches / David Leigh -- Large And Startling Figures : The Grotesque And The Sublime In The Short Stories Of Flannery O' Connor / Michael Raiger -- Sour Grapes : Ezekiel And The Literature Of Social Justice / Henry Louis Gates, Jr. -- Wallace Steven's Spiritual Voyage : A Christian Path To Conversion / Dorothy Judd Hall -- Poetry, Language, And Identity : A Note On Seamus Heaney / Richard Kearney -- Stevie Smith : Skepticism And The Poetry Of Religious Experience / John L. Mahoney -- Acts Of God : Film, Religion, And Fx / Judith Wilt. Edited With An Introduction By John L. Mahoney. Different Subtitle On Dust Jacket Cover. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. As the discourse of contemporary cultural studies brings questions of race, nationality, and gender to the center of critical attention, there is a strong sense that religion, and religious experience, should command the attention of the academic and wider reading community. Seeing into the Life of Things is a response to that need. By combining the theoretical and the practical, this book serves as both a pioneering scholarly contribution to a developing field and a guide for those who read, reflect on, and discuss points of intersection of religion and literature.