Religious imagination and the body
Book Description
Paula M. Cooey presents a groundbreaking exploration of how the physical body shapes and informs religious understanding, particularly through women's experiences. Drawing from diverse sources including prison narratives, contemporary fiction, and visual art, this scholarly work examines the profound connections between bodily experience and spiritual insight.
The author challenges traditional religious frameworks by investigating how women's closer identification with their bodies may provide access to distinct forms of spiritual knowledge. Through careful analysis of works by artists like Frida Kahlo and writers such as Toni Morrison, Cooey demonstrates how physical sensations, including both pain and pleasure, contribute to religious imagination and understanding.
This interdisciplinary study weaves together insights from cognitive psychology, social theory, and feminist scholarship to examine the role of embodied experience in spiritual life. Cooey explores how sentience and sensuality relate to religious authority, questioning whether women's bodily experiences offer valid alternatives to male-dominated religious traditions.
The book addresses fundamental questions about gender, spirituality, and knowledge formation. By examining the female body as a source of alternative understanding, Cooey contributes to ongoing conversations in religious studies, philosophical theology, and feminist theory. Her work offers both critical analysis and constructive proposals for understanding how physical experience informs spiritual practice and religious meaning-making.
This thoughtful examination will resonate with readers interested in feminist spirituality, embodied religious practice, and the intersection of gender and faith.
Who Is This For?
📖 Reading Level: Short (< 200 pages) (~5 hours)
🕉️ Tradition: Comparative Religion
📄 Length: 184 pages
What You'll Discover
- ✓ Explore Religious aspects of Women
- ✓ Explore Religious aspects
- ✓ Explore Religious aspects of the Human body
- ✓ Explore Women
- ✓ Explore Philosophical theology
- ✓ Explore Feminist theory
- ✓ Explore Religious aspects of Imagination
- ✓ Explore Woman (Theology)
