Bodies of Life: Shaker Literature and Literacies

(Hardback)

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The Shakers' "spiritual literacies," defined through an examination of their reading and writing practices, blur boundaries between traditionally masculine and feminine realms by using reason and emotion and by being innovative as well as traditional. This exploration of the relationship between literary practices and religious life in the 19th century, of such genres as autobiographies, elegies, histories, and doctrinal works, provides new insights into the many ways in which literacy enriches people's lives. This volume will appeal not only to the growing body of shaker scholars, but also to researchers interested in American literature and culture, literacy, religious history, and gender studies.

Reviews

"In this instructive volume Etta Madden probes the ways in which both reading and writing among the Shakers enriched the lives of the Believers. Her focus on the variety of literacies within the commjunity adds immensely to our understanding of the Shaker traditions of spirituality. Her recognition of the multiplicity of 'texts' among the Believers as well as the creative tensions between public and private, oral and written, male and female, physical and spiritual, enhances our knowledge and provides insight into critical pieces of Shaker literature. Madden's preoccupation with the role of the body in all this discourse ties her work to major currents of contemporary scholarship. This is a sophisticated contribution to current Shaker scholarship." Stephen J. Stein. Chancellors' Professor and Chair. Department of Religious Studies. Indiana University, Bloomington - "I have found [the book] to be highly readable, interesting, cogent, well bolstered by knowledge of relevant secondary studies, and brimming with good ideas. It ought to make significant contributions to interdisciplinry Shaker studies, to the study of American religious culture and to the study of literacy in general. Madden is one of the few people in Shaker studies so far to insist that we look at Shaker literature not just for what it can yield the historian or the scholar of religion, but also for its importance as American culture." Jean M. Humez. University of Massachusetts, Boston - "To the simple question, 'how did Shakers read and how did they understand writing,' this book returns a remarkably interesting series of answers that engage with the overlapping significance of orality and writing, authority and freedom, ecstasy and control. An important addiction to our understanding of the meaning of print, writing, and orality in 19th-century America." David D. Hall. Harvard Divinity School

Author Bio

ETTA M. MADDEN is Assistant Professor of English at Southwest Missouri State University. She teaches courses in early American literature, from the age of European exploration to the Civil War, as well as courses on autobiographies, essays, and other prose nonfiction. Her interest in literature and culture has centered on religious writing and is beginning to encompass the literature of science.