Body theology has for a number of years now has challenged the ways in which traditional theology views the body and in doing so has moved the study of the incarnation forward. The authors of this book argue that the mutilated and self-mutilated bodies of women have served as a hermeneutical clue to the ways in which female bodies are the sites of societal, ecclesiastical and psychological warfare.

As part of the series on controversies in contextual theology, Marcella Althaus-Reid and Lisa Isherwood edit this collection of writings from leading scholars, examining some of the most extreme approaches to the body that our society engages with. This book engages with difficult and challenging issues surrounding the body and society, as an embodied resource for the ever-expanding task of considering the nature of incarnation through the lens of body theology.

Includes contributions from Beverly Clack, Inga Bryden, Elizabeth Baxter, Martin Hugo Cordova Quero, Victoria Rollins, Janet Wootton and Paul Reid-Bowen.

Contents:

Series Introduction
List of Contributors

Introduction: Slicing Women’s Bodies: Christianity and the Cut, Mutilation and Cosmetically Altered Believers
1.Slicing Mothers: Violence and the Maternal in the Marquis de Sade
Beverly Clark

2.‘Cut’n’Slash’: Remodelling the ‘Freakish’ Female Form
Inga Bryden

3.Cutting Edge: Witnessing Rites of Passage in a Therapeutic Community
Elizabeth Baxter

4.Mutilations and Restorations: Cosmetic Surgery in Christianity
Marcella Althaus-Reid

5.This Body Trans/Forming Me: Indecencies in Transgendered/Intersex Bodies,
Body Fascism and the Doctrine of the Incarnation
Martín Hugo Córdova Quero

6.Uses and Abuses of Power in the Shoah and the Silent Genocide of Abused Women
Victoria Rollins

7.Biblically Slicing Women
Janet Wootton

8.Will you Slim for Him or Bake Cakes for the Queen of Heaven
Lisa Isherwood

9.Why Women Need to be Ripped, Shredded and Sliced: Political, Philosophical And Thealogical Reflections
Paul Reid-Bowen

Bibliography
Index of Names and Subjects
Index of Biblical References

Authors:

Marcella Althaus-Reid is a Professor of Contextual Theology at the University of Edinburgh

Lisa Isherwood is Professor of Feminist Liberation Theologies at the University of Winchester.