Scholars of religion have come a long way since William James famously made of religion a matter between man and his maker. For decades now, they have been attentive to the ways in which religion takes shape as the product of broad social forces, focusing on the dynamics of power and culture as heuristics for understanding religious phenomena and experience.

What, however, might they be missing by moving too quickly from one interpretative extreme to the other-and what might we learn about religion by staying in the interstitial space between the individual in her solitude and society as a whole?

Religious Intimacies, edited by Mary Dunn and Brenna Moore, brings together nine scholars of modern Christianity to probe this in-between space. In essays that range from treatments of Jesuit-indigenous relations in early modern Canada to the erotics of contemporary black theology, each contributor makes the case for the study of the presence and power of affective ties and relational dynamics between friends, lovers, and intimate others (even things) as vital to the understanding of religion.

About the Author

Mary Dunn is Associate Professor of Early Modern Christianity in the Department of Theological Studies at Saint Louis University. She is author of The Cruelest of All Mothers: Marie de l'Incarnation, Motherhood, and Christian Tradition.

Brenna Moore is Associate Professor in the Department of Theology at Fordham University. She is author of Sacred Dread: Raissa Maritain, the Allure of Suffering, and the French Catholic Revival, 1905-1944.

Reviews

"Scholars of Christianity have long acknowledged spiritual friendship as a powerful concept and model for human relationships from its origins through the seventeenth century. These thoughtful and probing essays convincingly show that ties built upon affect, family, and shared convictions have continued to inform lived religious experience in modern times and shape western Christianity in significant, sometimes surprising ways."-Jodi Bilinkoff, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

"Dunn and Moore have brought together a rich collection of essays which use intimate relationships to chart a course between "solitude and society" providing an original lens through which to examine religion in the modern Christian West. By broadening the narrow view of intimacy beyond the privacy of heteronormative marriage, this book demonstrates the ongoing political, public, and theological significance of friendship and embodied, affective relationship in the modern age."-Tamsin Jones, Trinity College

Book Information
ISBN 9780253049865
Author Mary Dunn
Format Paperback
Page Count 238
Imprint Indiana University Press
Publisher Indiana University Press
Weight(grams) 354g