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List of contents
Foreword by David Jasper; Introduction(s); Part I: Home; 1 Skirting the Edges: Tina Beattie and Hans Urs von Balthasar in Church; 2 Gaston Bachelard Takes Us to Church; 3 Transfigurations with Yves Bonnefoy; Part II: Leaving Home: From Temple to Text; 4 What Is Church When Church Is Not?; 5 The Poet Sets the Path: a Reading of Hélène Cixous’ Manna; 6 (Trans)Forming Faith with Yves Bonnefoy, Hélène Cixous and Ignatius of Loyola; 7 Poetry and Prayer: an ‘Inner Kinship’; Part III: Transformative Homecomings; 8 ‘But Now My Eye Sees You’: Reading Dennis Potter’s The Singing Detective and the Book of Job with Hélène Cixous; 9 Believing as a Poet: ‘Writing All the Way Down’
About the author
Jennifer Reek has a PhD from the Centre for Literature, Theology and the Arts, University of Glasgow. Her work has appeared in journals such as Literature and Theology and Contemporary Women’s Writing. She is co-editor of the forthcoming fourth volume of the Routledge Power of the Word series, Thresholds of Wonder: Poetry, Philosophy and Theology in Conversation. Currently, she teaches seminars in Great Books in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition at Sacred Heart University, Fairfield, Connecticut.
Summary
Structured as a spiritual and literary journey, this book moves from models of the institutional Catholic Church into more radical and ambiguous textual spaces, which the author creates by bringing together an unorthodox group of thinkers referred to as ‘poet-companions’.
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"Jennifer Reek’s book is a beautifully written account of a life-changing journey she has undertaken […] Reek interweaves with impressive erudition many different writings and careful autobiographical reflection."
– Kathryn Wills, University of Glasgow, Literature & Theology
"How is the “poetic ... political” (171)? This question conveys the dynamic life and the theme that connects the 10 essays in Jennifer Reek’s A Poetics of Church: Reading and Writing Sacred Spaces of Poetic Dwelling. At times elusive, always allusive with countless conversation partners, Reek invites us on a journey with poet-thinker “companions,” including Ignatius of Loyola, Gaston Bachelard, Yves Bonnefoy, Hèléne Cixous, Dennis Potter, and Karl Rahner.
- Larry D. Bouchard, Professor of Religious Studies, University of Virginia, Reading Religion
