Attunement

Abstract

Abstract What is a feminist theologian to do with Christianity’s patriarchal inheritance? Two time-honored approaches in feminist theology are critiquing the most patriarchal aspects of the theological tradition and avoiding them. Both approaches have merits and yet, by themselves, reaffirm that theological tradition does not belong to women and the gender-marginalized. But within feminist theology are the seeds of another approach, aimed at the transformation of theological discourse. This book identifies and develops a third, generative path for feminist theologians. It elaborates attunement as an aesthetically invested approach to texts and artifacts that self-consciously co-creates as it interprets. The book describes why this approach is significant for feminist theology today, where it has roots both in feminist theology and in the longer history of gender-marginalized individuals claiming authority, how it casts interpretation as both an aesthetic and political event, and how it might provide a way forward for vexed topics in feminist theology, such as the theology of Augustine or the role of Mary.