Women, literature and artful theology: the Word and the flesh

ABSTRACT: The presentation focuses on a literary project by seven feminist writers, among them Sara Maitland, Michele Robets, Zoe Fairbairns and Agnes Owens, whose short stories comprise two unique collections, The Seven Deadly Sins (1988) and The Seven Cardinal Virtues (1990) that offer a specifically feminist approach to the traditional Christian notions of sin and virtue. The collections encompass a variety of genres and conventions: rewritings of myths and fairy tales, gothic stories, realist and epistolary modes, cooking recipes, dream analysis and others. The presentation aims to analyse some aspects of the two collections, with particular focus on the feminine and human body, to indicate how the Christian notions of sin and virtue may be revived in modern literature. Also, in view of popular feminist theological essays by Sara Maitland, this paper also seeks to investigate feminist literary contribution to Maitland’s idea of “artful theology” advocating more creative and inclusive spirituality.

Aleksandra Wisniewska: Assistant Professor of IAiA of the University of Gdansk, literary scholar interested particularly in British literature of the 20th and 21st centuries. Research interests: analysis of literary texts which in their linguistic, structural and thematic layers reveal the relationship between literature and theology; analysis and interpretation of texts in terms of the narrative techniques, ways of creating characters and space.