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Dealing with the historical and thematic intersections of Christianity and critical theory, this collection brings together a diversity of specialist scholars in the area. Building on recent discourses in theology as well as their knowledge of hermeneutic and critical traditions, they examine major themes in contemporary critical theory.

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Introduction; C.Falke PART I Reading Theologically: Reduction and Reductio ; K.Hart After Theory, After Modernity; J.Hooten An Ache in the Missing Limb: Biblical Origins of English Literary Criticism; S.Prickett Good Reading: The Ethics of Christian Literary Theory; C.Falke Sites of Resistance: Christ and Materiality after the New Historicism; M.M.Harris Post-Secular Queer: Christianity, Queer Theory and the Unsolvable Mysteries of Sexual Desire; N.Jones Part II Dil Ulenspiegel: The Inverted Gospel and an Early Modern Clown; T.Lederer Take and Eat: Eve, Mary, and Feminist Christianity; M.Diede Humans, Animals and Others; P.Sampson Theologizing Horror: Spirituality and the Gothic; A.Ng The Secular Dream of a Christian Utopia: Tracing Puritanism in American Studies; I.Özcan Heaven Came Down: Deconstruction, Christianity, and George Herbert´s The Collar ; M.Mattek Endnotes References Index

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´This book is a timely and much-needed intervention in the study of Christian theology and critical theory. It represents the best of Christian reflection on contemporary movements in critical theory, as well as on the roots of the discipline itself in theological tradition. The contributors analyse ethical criticism, animal rights discourse, queer theory, postfeminism, and the ´return to religion´ of Badiou and i ek, among others, in the light of Christian theology, and suggest new ways of reading literary and cultural texts on the basis of these exchanges. Essential reading for scholars of contemporary culture, theory and religion.´

- Luke Ferretter, Assistant Professor of English, Baylor University, USA

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MARTHA DIEDE Associate Professor of English, Northwest University in Kirkland, Washington, USA MITCHELL M. HARRIS Assistant Professor of English, Augustana College, USA KEVIN HART Edwin B. Kyle Professor of Christian Studies, University of Virginia, USA NORMAN JONES Associate Professor of English, Ohio State University, USA THOMAS LEDERER Independent Scholar JESSICA LYNICE HOOTEN Assistant Professor, University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, USA MIKE MATTEK Assistant Professor of English, University of Wisconsin, USA ANDREW NG Senior Lecturer in Literary Studies, Monash University, Malaysia ISIL OZCAN Research Assistant, Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir, Turkey STEPHEN PRICKETT Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, Australia PHILIP SAMPSON Independent Scholar

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