Julian of Norwich: And the Mystical Body Politic of Christ (Studies in Spirituality and Theology) - Hardcover

Bauerschmidt, Frederick Christian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 026801194X ISBN 13: 9780268011949

Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press, 2022

Synopsis

Julian of Norwich wrote A Revelation of Love, a short text which shows the immediacy of her experience, and a long text which shows 20 years of reflection. This book offers a reading of these texts and addresses the relationship between the understanding of God and her vision of human community.

About this title

About the Author:

Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt is associate professor of theology at Loyola College in Maryland.

Review:

Bauerschmidt adds a creative and challenging dimension to the current lively discussion of the theology of fourteenth-century British anchorite Julian of Norwich. His reading of Julian’s text is complex and challenging and makes a provocative contribution to both the hermeneutics of medieval texts and to contemporary political discussions.” —Religious Studies Review

“This is the best study on Julian since Colledge and Walsh’s 1978 critical edition of Showings. Bauerschmidt’s treatment of Julian’s bodily sight of the Crucified is a stunning tour de force of imaginative scholarship. I have nothing but praise for this uniformly excellent book.” —Theological Studies

“In this very important book, Frederick Bauerschmidt provides us with a more adequate account than any hitherto of Julian of Norwich specifically as a theologian, rather than as a mere spiritual writer or else as a feminist avant la lettre.” —Pro Ecclesia

“This book is to be commended for its bold attempt to provide a new vocabulary with which to discuss aspects of the Revelation of Divine Love, a text which repeatedly resists scholarly explication. Julian gives no sources for her thought, and this book eschews the search for them. It offers a reading of Julian’s text, not a hypothesis as to its author’s intentions, although its argument is occasionally rendered vulnerable by an over-close identification of author with text. Bauderschmidt wisely disclaims that he has unlocked the text’s ‘real’ significance, and acknowledges that his treatment of it is guided by a particular interest in human community. The result is an honest and searching contribution to Julian scholarship.” —The Heythrop Journal

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
• Publication date: 2022
• ISBN 10: 026801194X
• ISBN 13: 9780268011949
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304