Negotiating Feminism and Faith in the Lives and Works of Late Medieval and Early Modern Women

This wide-ranging transnational collection theorizes how late medieval and early modern Western women critically and creatively negotiated their faith and feminism, taking into account intersecting factors such as class, culture, confessional stance, institutional affiliation, ethnicity, dis/ability, geography, and historical circumstance. It presents thirteen original case studies on the diversity, complexity, and subtlety of the intersection of faith and feminism in the lives and works of twenty-two women writers over a 350-year period in six nations. Along the way, it interrogates the accuracy of the view that monotheistic religions only constrict and oppress women, stifling their agency, autonomy, and authority.

Holly Faith Nelson, Ph.D., is Professor of English and Co-Director of the Gender Studies Institute at Trinity Western University. Her work on women’s writing, gender and literature, and religion and literature has appeared in a wide range of journals and essay collections over the past two decades Adrea Johnson, Ph.D., specializes in women’s religious writing of the long nineteenth century. She also holds an M.A. in Theology from Regent College. Her article on the hymnologist John Mason Neale appeared in Crux. She currently teaches at the University of the Fraser Valley and Regent College.