Constructions of Feminine Identity in the Catholic Tradition

Christopher Flavin is associate professor of English and chair of the department of languages and literature at Northeastern State University in Oklahoma.

Constructions of Feminine Identity in the Catholic Tradition: Inventing Women takes the "Catholic Tradition" to a new level. It is a nuanced and critical assessment of women's identities that were often shaped by men, within patriarchal structures, and yet, driven by outstanding women far beyond existing norms. Christopher Flavin engages with narratives on and of women like Perpetua in the second century to Teresa of Ávila in the 16th. Without falling into postmodern traps, the book insists on the communal aspect and the impact these women had on experiencing faith in novel ways. Methodologically too, this is innovative and stimulating reading.

• IntroductionChapter One: Women Writing or Writing About WomenChapter Two: (En) Gendering Texts: The Establishment of Women’s Christian Literary TraditionsChapter Three: Perpetua and Her Daughters: Mystics, Mothers, Martyrs, and TextsChapter Four: Constructing a New Self: Women, Truth, and the Rhetorical Turn of the Twelfth CenturyChapter Five: Heloise and the Rhetoric of the SelfChapter Six: “Texts Without Bodies, Churches Without Windows”: Affective Piety in Women’s AutobiographiesChapter Seven: Reinvigorating the Traditions: St. Teresa and the Reformation