Feminist Interpretations of Saint Augustine

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.”

—Colleen McCluskey, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews