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Catherine Madsen, The Bones Reassemble: Reconstituting
Liturgical Speech
Philosophical and
Cultural Studies in Religion
The Bones Reassemble is an incisive and groundbreaking
interdisciplinary critique of modern liturgical language. Catherine
Madsen believes that liturgy has enormous potential importance as a
verbal distillation of the modern condition and as a means of
reordering consciousness toward responsive imagination. Unorthodox,
but working in a constant productive tension with orthodoxy, she
sees the language of prayer at its best, not primarily as a matter
of theological assertion, but as a fusion of thought and feeling
that fuels moral effort. Drawing on religious and literary studies,
psychology, and cognitive science, Madsen brings theoretical
sophistication and intellectual passion to the contemporary
discussion of liturgy.
Contents
Preface
Chapter One: The Power to Contain
Chapter Two: The Synaptic Gospels: Speculations on Liturgy and
Cognition
Chapter Three: “A Good Mouth-Filling Oath”: Early Modern Style
Chapter Four: Liturgy Terminable and Interminable
Chapter Five: Putting the Id Back in Liturgy
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Reviews
“In The Bones Reassemble, Catherine Madsen has given us…a rigorous
and daring inquiry into the state of contemporary theology –
specifically, the ways in which our denominations and faith
communities speak of and therefore think of God.… None of us who is
engaged in the formal or informal study of religion can afford to
ignore this provocative book. She has transformed the discipline.”
—
Neil Gillman, The Jewish
Theological Seminary of America
“[…] Madsen’s probing and provocative work draws from sources in
esthetics, psychology and neuroscience to argue that liturgical
language must not fear metaphor; must not fear trauma; must reach
into “the recesses of feeling,” and the dramatic heights of emotion
and need; must work with the body. The Bones Reassemble, like active
liturgy itself, will be worth reading and re-reading for its
fullness.”
—
Alicia Ostriker, Rutgers University
Author
Catherine Madsen is a contributing editor to the interreligious/interdisciplinary journal
CrossCurrents. She has been
working with liturgy both practically and theoretically for twenty
years as an active lay leader, a writer and a teacher of writing.
She received her MFA in Writing and Literature from Goddard College.
She is the author of a novel, A Portable Egypt, and many
essays, and is at work on a cycle of Jewish liturgy.
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