Acute Melancholia and Other Essays deploys spirited and progressive approaches to the study of Christian mysticism and the philosophy of religion. Ideal for novices and experienced scholars alike, the volume makes a forceful case for thinking about religion as both belief and practice, in which traditions marked by change are passed down through generations, laying the groundwork for their own critique. Through a provocative integration of medieval sources and texts by Jacques Derrida, Judith Butler, Talal Asad, and Dipesh Chakrabarty, this book redefines what it means to engage critically with history and those embedded within it.
- Table of Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: A Triptych
- Part I
- Part II. History
- 2. Feminist Studies in Christian Spirituality
- 3. On Gender, Agency, and the Divine in Religious Historiography
- 4. Reading as Self-Annihilation: On Marguerite Porete’s Mirror of Simple Souls
- Part III. Sexuality
- 5. Sexual Desire, Divine Desire; Or, Queering the Beguines
- 6. The Normal, the Queer, and the Middle Ages
- 7. “That Glorious Slit”: Irigaray and the Medieval Devotion to Christ’s Side Wound
- Part IV. Practice
- 8. Inside Out: Beatrice of Nazareth and Her Hagiographer
- 9. Performativity, Citationality, Ritualization
- 10. Practice, Belief, and Feminist Philosophy of Religion
- Part V
- 11. Love of Neighbor and Love of God: Martha and Mary in the Christian Middle Ages
- Notes
- Sources
- Index
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