1st Edition

Nineteenth-Century American Women Write Religion Lived Theologies and Literature

By Mary McCartin Wearn Copyright 2014
    200 Pages
    by Routledge

    200 Pages
    by Routledge

    Nineteenth-century American women’s culture was immersed in religious experience and female authors of the era employed representations of faith to various cultural ends. Focusing primarily on non-canonical texts, this collection explores the diversity of religious discourse in nineteenth-century women’s literature. The contributors examine fiction, political writings, poetry, and memoirs by professional authors, social activists, and women of faith, including Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Angelina and Sarah Grimké, Louisa May Alcott, Rebecca Harding Davis, Harriet E. Wilson, Sarah Piatt, Julia Ward Howe, Julia A. J. Foote, Lucy Mack Smith, Rebecca Cox Jackson, and Fanny Newell. Embracing the complexities of lived religion in women’s culture-both its repressive and its revolutionary potential-Nineteenth-Century American Women Write Religion articulates how American women writers adopted the language of religious sentiment for their own cultural, political, or spiritual ends.

    Introduction, Mary McCartinWearn; Chapter 1 Renegade Religious, Nancy F.Sweet; Chapter 2 Shaping Narrative, Joy A. J.Howard; Chapter 3 Composing Radical Lives, RachelCope; Chapter 4 “Come Right Down With Me”, Benjamin G.Sammons; Chapter 5 Religious Popular Culture and the Critique of Romantic Racialism in Harriet E. Wilson’s Our Nig, Randi LynnTanglen; Chapter 6 “One, Hermaphroditic] Angel”, KarlynCrowley; Chapter 7 “The Grace of God Assisting”, Valerie D.Levy; Chapter 8 “A Religion of Their Own”, GregoryEiselein; Chapter 9 “A startling reform”, RoxanneHarde; Chapter 10 The Puritan Roots of Sarah Piatt’s Feminist Materialism, Mary McCartinWeam;

    Biography

    Mary McCartin Wearn is Associate Professor of English and Assistant Vice President of Academic Planning and Policy at Middle Georgia State College.

    '...makes a welcome contribution to the growing scholarly interest in women’s religious attitudes and experiences in nineteenth-century America.' Nan Goodman, University of Colorado, Boulder 'This is a series of carefully thought out essays exploring women's personal spiritual authority and involvement in "religious conversations." ... Readers researching women's history and spirituality, American studies and religious studies will be interested. Footnotes, bibliography and index provided.' Magistra