Overview

Full Product Details

9781009180634

Table of Contents

Reviews

'Mary Daly's unfinished Catholicism: End or Beginning? represents a brilliant example of a brilliant woman thinking, and indeed writing, out loud, as her explorations – and especially her burgeoning sense of the fundamental misogyny running through the institutions of Protestantism and Catholicism – led her to make an inevitable and inexorable break with those traditions that had no respect for what Luce Irigaray would call a dialectic between the sexes. It is an extraordinarily valuable record of a pioneering woman's struggle toward intellectual, theological, and personal integrity.' Mary Teresa Condren, Centre for Gender and Women's Studies, Trinity College, University of Dublin 'What a remarkable find! So here we see Mary Daly's struggle with traditional male theology come to a head. Perhaps encountering Paul Tillich was the last straw. She walks away and chooses another path that takes her Beyond God the Father. And onward she clears the path for the rest of us, for which we are most grateful.' Marie M. Fortune, Founder of FaithTrust Institute 'This is an astonishing find: an early 'lost' text of Daly's that fills an intellectual gap in her oeuvre. Students of Daly will appreciate her teaching voice in this text and see not only a foreshadowing of her later work in the existentialist content of the extant chapters but also clarity of their importance and helpful contextualization by preeminent Daly scholars. This volume constitutes a vital contribution to scholarship on one of the least cited but most influential intellectual luminaries of the last century.' Laurel C. Schneider, Research Professor, School of Theology, Boston University 'Mary Daly fans will be delighted to encounter this newly discovered manuscript, written by Daly in the formative period between The Church and the Second Sex and Beyond God the Father. Its surprising contents are well-contextualized by six very helpful contributions by leading feminist thinkers. The book makes clear the ideas that Daly rejected but also those that continued to shape her even as she led her famous walkout from Memorial Church.' Judith Plaskow, Manhattan College

Author Information

In its obituary, the Guardian newspaper called Mary Daly (1928–2010) 'one of the key feminist writers of the twentieth century.' Challenging patriarchy in religion, society, and culture, Daly was a coruscating critic of the ways in which patriarchal institutions operate and discriminate. The Church and the Second Sex (1968), her best-known book, was an attempt to work within a Christian framework. Later works, such as Pure Lust (1984) and Outercourse (1992), emerged from a post-Christian mindset. Written after The Church and the Second Sex and before the influential Beyond God the Father (1973), Catholicism: End or Beginning? explores a renewed and revitalized ecclesiology that transcends the perceived dichotomy between 'Catholic substance' and the 'Protestant principle.' For Daly, resolving this polarity - by reclaiming a new freedom of spirit and intellectual power - would allow theologians to answer the central question: 'Has Catholicism reached its end, or is there hope for a genuine new beginning?' Meg Stapleton Smith is Adjunct Professor of Theology and Ethics at Fordham University and a theological ethicist, educator, and ordained priest in the Episcopal Church. She uncovered Mary Daly's unpublished work in the archives of Smith College where Daly's writings and papers are deposited. Its discovery will be exciting to anyone interested in Mary Daly's work and her extensive and continuing influence. The editor has commissioned additional chapters by prominent writers working at the interface of feminism, women's studies, theology, and philosophy. These show how Daly's text remains a potent contribution by one of the twentieth century's most important thinkers.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available