Sarah J. Bloesch - Cultural Approaches to Studying Religion

To the contributors who enthusiastically agreed that this project was a necessary intervention. Thank you for your time and your energy.

This could not have been done without you.

ALSO AVAILABLE FROM BLOOMSBURY

A Beginners Guide to the Study of Religion, Bradley L. Herling

The Bloomsbury Reader in Cultural Approaches to the Study of Religion, edited by Sarah J. Bloesch and Meredith Minister

The Bloomsbury Reader in Religion, Sexuality, and Gender, edited by Donald L. Boisvert and Carly Daniel-Hughes

The Study of Religion, George D. Chryssides and Ron Geaves

Contents

From the moment we began dreaming of this volume in 2014 over Merediths kitchen table while Sarah was visiting until its submission in 2017, crafting this volume has been an enormous undertaking that would not have been possible without the support of our families, friends, colleagues, and institutions. Our partners, also both scholars of religion, were the first to support our dream and offer helpful insights as we began to outline our vision. They have continued to support us throughout this project, making it possible for us to be in the same place when critical steps in the project required us to have more extended meetings and edit endless drafts of our work. Julie Mavity Maddalena provided consistent friendship throughout the project. When we presented our idea to Kathryn Lofton at AAR in 2015, she became an immediate supporter and helped direct us to Bloomsbury and the editorial assistance of Lalle Pursglove, with whom it has been an absolute pleasure to work. We also appreciate Lucy Carrolls guiding hand in all details, great and small. Their excitement, insight, and support has shaped this project and helped bring it to fruition. We received tireless support from a dedicated group of readers and conversation partners who read drafts of the introduction and thoughtfully engaged the state of theory in religious studies: Kevin Minister, Jes Boon, Rhiannon Graybill, and Jill DeTemple. We thank them and the anonymous readers for their insights and work on this volume. We began enlisting contributors shortly after meeting with Bloomsbury and were overwhelmed by their positive reception, and it is to them that we dedicate this work.

On March 16, 2017, just before our April 1 deadline for a first round of submissions, Meredith was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer and immediately began treatment, which involved a surgery that her medical oncologist later deemed aggressive and risky, followed by six months of chemotherapy. When she received the diagnosis, one of her first questions (which she reactively asked a very patient gastroenterologist) was, am I going to be able to finish the books I have under contract? As she sat with a grim prognosis in the short week before surgery, she decided that her final acts might be to finish her current book projects. This decision put an immense amount of strain on the people around her (including Sarah and the contributors, who we asked to contribute their chapters so that Meredith could work on editing them before becoming worn down by the final rounds of chemo).

This project would not have been possible without the support Meredith received through treatment from Sarah, from Merediths and her partners extended families, from her friends, from an extended network of colleagues, and from colleagues, students, and administrators at Shenandoah University. A few special mentions for unquantifiable support go to her partner, Kevin Minister, friends who drove her to chemo when Kevin was out of town, Andrea Smith and Dana Baxter, Sarah, of course, who arranged her own working schedule around Merediths treatment, Merediths parents, grandmother, and aunt, H. D. and Kay Williams, Glenda Cooper, and Ladonna Cooper, her in-laws Andy and Becky Minister, her brother-in-law Stephen Minister and his family, Justin Allen for being an information node, relieving Meredith of the responsibility, and, finally, to everyone who laughed at her jokes about death instead of staring at her with horror (an especially high mention to folks who crafted new jokes). A few local businesses also supported Meredith during her treatment, including Shenandoah University, the Hideaway Caf, and Shine Yoga. This list leaves out so many who sent care packages and helpful readings (usually feminist authors writing about illness and speculative fiction), brought food, vacuumed, did laundry and dishes, walked the dog, mowed the lawn, took over classes and committee work for Meredith and her partner (including finishing program planning for a conference committee they were on), organized fundraisers and marches, wrote cards and jokes for Meredith to read during chemo, and generally managed things that Meredith ignored to work on this volume.

While finishing the manuscript, Meredith had the opportunity to go on two retreats for cancer patients. The first was sponsored by Marys Place by the Sea, a house in Ocean Grove, New Jersey where women with cancer gather near the ocean for spa-like healing services including massage, gentle yoga, and prepared meals. The other retreat was sponsored by First Descents, an organization that arranges adventure programming for young adults with cancer. At both retreats, Meredith met amazing people who helped her manage many of the side effects of the treatment. These organizations are doing incredible work, and Meredith wishes to thank them for the retreats and would like to promote the work that they do to other women and/or young adults with cancer. She also wishes to thank the people who accompanied her on these retreats and their willingness to share laughter and grief, often at the same time.

For Sarah it is only appropriate to begin and end acknowlegdments where this project did, with enormous graditude to Meredith for our shared ongoing discussions, work, negotiations, visions, questions, friendship, and creativity (youre the J to my P). Sarah would also like to thank her friends, colleagues, and students at Elon University who have provided a rich opportunity to discuss, debate, and refine the role of theory and methods in the discipline and the classroom. Further, Sarah cherishes her time with the Duke/UNC Theory Reading Group and the intellectual rigor and friendship it providesthese are the settings to which an academic aspires. Finally, Sarah would also like to thank her family for their love and support through the many stages that come before a book ever reaches publication.

Ellen T. Armour is the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Chair in Feminist Theology Associate Professor at Vanderbilt University. Her recent publications include Signs and Wonders: Theology after Modernity, Deconstruction, Feminist Theology, and The Problem of Difference: Subverting the Race/Gender Divide, and Bodily Citations: Religion and Judith Butler (with Susan St. Ville).

Sarah J. Bloesch is Visiting Assistant Professor in Religious Studies at Elon University. She has published in Culture and Religion and Theology and Sexuality. She is working on her first monograph, tentatively titled Salvation of Desire: Melancholic Bodies, Deified Flesh.

Jessica A. Boon is Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Her recent publications include Mystical Science of the Soul: Medieval Cognition in Bernardino de Laredos Recollection Method and Mother Juana de la Cruz 14811534: Visionary Sermons