Kristina K. Groover

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.

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.

America’s literature is notably marked by a preoccupation with the spiritual quest. Questing heroes from Huck Finn to Nick Adams have undertaken solitary journeys that pull them away from family and society and into a transformative wilderness that brings them to a new understanding of the spiritual world. Women, however, have not often been portrayed as questing heroes. Bound to home and community, they have been more frequently cast as representatives of that stifling world from which the hero is compelled to flee. Are women in American literary texts thus excluded from spiritual experience? Kristina K. Groover, in examining this question, finds that books by American women writers offer alternative patterns for seeking revelation—patterns which emphasize not solitary journeys, but the sacredness of everyday life. Drawing on the work of feminist theorists and theologians, including Carol Gilligan, Naomi Goldenberg, and Rosemary Ruether, Groover explores the spiritual nature and force of domesticity, community, storytelling, and the garden in the works of such writers as Toni Morrison, Katherine Anne Porter, Kaye Gibbons, and Alice Walker. Ordinary, personal experience in these works becomes a source for spiritual revelation. Wisdom is gained, lessons are learned, and lives are healed not in spite of home and communal ties, but because of them. Thus, American women writers, Groover argues, make alternative literary and spiritual paradigms possible. Similarly, Kristina K. Groover, in this lucid and groundbreaking work, opens up new fields of exploration for any reader interested in women’s spirituality or in the rich, diverse field of American literature.