Since the establishment of Christianity in the West as a major religious tradition, Augustine (354–430 CE) has been considered a principal architect of the ways philosophy can be used for reasoning about faith. In particular, Augustine effected the joining of Platonism with Christian belief for the Middle Ages and beyond. The results of his enterprise continue to be felt, especially with regard to the contested topics of human embodiment, sexuality, and the nature and roles of women. As a result, few thinkers have been as problematic for feminists as he has been. He is the thinker that a number of feminists love to hate.
What do feminist thinkers make of this problematic legacy? These lively essays address that question and provide thoughtful arguments for the value of engaging Augustine’s ideas and texts anew by using the well-established methodologies that feminists have developed over the last thirty years. Augustine and his legacy have much to answer for, but these essays show that the body of his work also has much to offer as feminists explore, challenge, and reframe his thinking while forging new paradigms for construing gender, power, and notions of divinity.
Contents
Preface
Introduction
Judith Chelius Stark
1. Augustine: Sexuality, Gender, and Women
Rosemary Radford Ruether
2. Monica: The Feminine Face of Christ
Anne-Marie Bowery
3. Augustine's Rhetoric of the Feminine in the Confessions: Woman as Mother, Woman as Other
Felecia McDuffie
4. Confessing Monica
Virginia Burrus and Catherine Keller
5. O Mother, Where Art Thou? In Search of Saint Monnica
Rebecca Moore
6. Not Nameless but Unnamed: The Woman Torn from Augustine's Side
Margaret R. Miles
7. Augustine's Letters to Women
Joanne McWilliam
8. De cura feminarum: Augustine the Bishop, North African Women, and the Development of a Theology of Female Nature
E. Ann Matter
9. Augustine on Women: In God's Image, but Less So
Judith Chelius Stark
10. To Remember Self, to Remember God: Augustine on Sexuality, Rationality, and the Trinity
Julie B. Miller
11. The Evanescence of Masculinity: Deferral in Saint Augustine's Confessions and Some Thoughts on Its Bearing on the Sex/Gender Debate
Penelope Deutscher
12. Poem: To Aurelius Augustine from the Mother of His Son
Ann Conrad Lammers
Select Bibliography
Contributors
Index
“It is clear that examining the history of philosophy is important to understand the social/cultural legacy we have inherited for better or for worse. It is incumbent upon us as scholars to clarify the fundamental positions of this inheritance, allowing it to stand (as much as we are able) on its own terms in all its glory and failures. Anything else is, in my view, intellectually dishonest. I see this collection of essays, and Penn State’s Rereading the Canon series in general, as an attempt to do just that. From my perspective, the book succeeds marvelously in its purpose. This is a book that anyone who has a sincere desire to come to terms with Augustine’s legacy and its impact on the lives of both women and men ought to consider reading.”
