Sex, Sin, and Our Selves: Encounters in Feminist Theology and Contemporary Women's Literature

by Anna Fisk

Sex, Sin, and Our Selves brings together readings in feminist theological thought and the literature of the acclaimed contemporary writers Michele Roberts and Sara Maitland. Through placing theology in conversation with Roberts's and Maitland's literary engagement with issues of religion and gender, this book explores themes of selfhood, connection, sex, sin, and self-sacrifice. In doing so, it challenges a tendency of feminist theology to seek simple and idealized answers, rather than honor complexity and the need to continue to ask questions. In the encounters in feminist theology and contemporary women's writing, Anna Fisk employs autobiographical narrative, critically understood as "reading these stories beside my own."

200 pages, Paperback

First published March 17, 2014

Reviews

[Brenton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an important book. I think it is an important to the Glasgow school of literature and theology. In asking core questions of feminist theology, Anna Fisk reads the literature of Michèle Roberts and Sara Maitland beside her own story. With her school of thought, she “emphasizes not theology through literature, or literature as the handmaid of theology, but the ways in which literature forms a renewing challenge to theological certainties.” The result is the beautifully written, thorough, and troubling Sex, Sin, and Our Selves.
In one of the more striking images I have seen, Fisk uses the disturbing and evocative metaphor of a “bone collage” to replace traditional feminist reconstructions that use metaphors like quilting or bricolage to tell their story: “As a feminist theological bone collage, this book pieces together fragments of feminist discourse and the broken shards of Christian theology.” Shards are splinters of what was whole, and can be effective improvised weapons. But Fisk approaches her critique differently. The work of Roberts and Maitland, with her own questions and concerns, lead to a steady, heart-rending, vigorous critique that is always engaging. And although Fisk does not think that Christian theology can be reconstructed when it is taken apart, her questions are honest and fruitful.
I think this is an important book of its kind, but it is also important to me. Fisk’s work is a model for me of an autoethnographic approach to literature and theology. More than this, though, in her feminist critique Fisk cuts to the heart of the spirituality that is at the centre of my research and practice. Sex, Sin, and Our Selves is a model for how I would like to write and research, but is also a project I would like to respond to at some point.

[Brenton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an important book. I think it is an important to the Glasgow school of literature and theology. In asking core questions of feminist theology, Anna Fisk reads the literature of Michèle Roberts and Sara Maitland beside her own story. With her school of thought, she “emphasizes not theology through literature, or literature as the handmaid of theology, but the ways in which literature forms a renewing challenge to theological certainties.” The result is the beautifully written, thorough, and troubling Sex, Sin, and Our Selves.
In one of the more striking images I have seen, Fisk uses the disturbing and evocative metaphor of a “bone collage” to replace traditional feminist reconstructions that use metaphors like quilting or bricolage to tell their story: “As a feminist theological bone collage, this book pieces together fragments of feminist discourse and the broken shards of Christian theology.” Shards are splinters of what was whole, and can be effective improvised weapons. But Fisk approaches her critique differently. The work of Roberts and Maitland, with her own questions and concerns, lead to a steady, heart-rending, vigorous critique that is always engaging. And although Fisk does not think that Christian theology can be reconstructed when it is taken apart, her questions are honest and fruitful.
I think this is an important book of its kind, but it is also important to me. Fisk’s work is a model for me of an autoethnographic approach to literature and theology. More than this, though, in her feminist critique Fisk cuts to the heart of the spirituality that is at the centre of my research and practice. Sex, Sin, and Our Selves is a model for how I would like to write and research, but is also a project I would like to respond to at some point.

[rottenrosette]

Thank you to that coquette dollcore girl i follow on instagram who always shares depressing morbid quotes from the books she reads. This author’s writing style seems really interesting