GENDER AND RELIGION IN RECENT VICTORIAN STUDIES PUBLICATIONS

Abstract

IN RECENT YEARS, literary critics and historians have become more conscious of how advantageous it can be to bring together scholarly work in religious studies and contemporary theories of gender. While the texts I will evaluate here exhibit greater or lesser degrees of awareness of current theory in its purest form, all share considerable interest in analyzing Victorian religion with respect to questions of sex. From traditional approaches of social history applied to women to specific studies of authors, from collections of critical essays to a book-length edition of the gems of a nineteenth-century sisterhood's archive, the fields of religious studies and gender studies can no longer be separated in critical practice to the degree that they had been in the past. In general, cultural studies approaches have yet to catch up with the rich scholarly possibilities offered by an exploration of Victorian Christianity. For the purpose of this essay, I have not delved deeply into works of postcolonial studies, nor have I focused on book-length inquiries into traditions outside Christianity. To be sure, there is much to investigate in those areas. But for the most part, as of this writing, book-length publications are simply not yet available.Cynthia Scheihberg's important book, Women's Poetry and Religion in Victorian England: Jewish Identity and Christian Culture (New York: Cambridge UP, 2002), was released too late for full inclusion in my essay, but should be recognized as among the significant new work in the field. We are working with a field that is only twenty years old, one that has seen substantial growth and suggested numerous directions for future research.