This book is an interdisciplinary and multicultural study of ancient and contemporary texts that encode women's spirituality. The contributors, using modern critical methods such as feminist theory, poststructuralism, and the new historicisms, examine how the ideas in these texts are being reworked in different religious traditions. The volume encompasses both contemporary and historical contexts, tracing the roles, actions, writings, and beliefs of women in pre-Christian, Christian, Islamic, indigenous, and neo-pagan contexts. The book builds on three decades of feminist research into such...

Why is it that Tim Winton - one of Australia's most popular and literary novelists - has received little sustained critical attention? This collection of essays examines the impact of Winton's work on understanding what it is to be Australian, to be human, to make and question meaning. His novels and short stories are vernacular and lyrical, optimistic and dark, holding up a peculiarly 'Wintonesque' mirror through which Australians - and international readers, differently - can see themselves, refracted. Exploring various themes - such as childhood, masculinity, love, death, landscape, and...