In its specially-commissioned fourteen chapters, this important book discusses an impressively wide range of issues around the theme of male spirituality in the nineteenth century, drawing from history, cultural studies, art history and literary criticism. Topics explored include: ideological and iconographical representations of masculinity across the major Christian denominations; militarism and hymnody; male homosexuality and homoeroticism. The book is not afraid to explore controversial areas, nor to go beyond the generally acknowledged 'canon' of prescribers of gender identity: it includes, for example, leading nonconformist figures like William Booth and Charles Haddon Spurgeon, and early gay writers like John Addington Symonds.
Reviews
'The range of themes and materials explored is impressive and there are interesting, sometimes arresting insights in almost every essay...The book confirms the extent to which Victorian and contemporary problems of culture, spirituality and gender identity in all their variousness can illuminate each other.' - Norman Vance, University of Sussex
Editors and Affiliations
King Alfred’s College, Winchester, UK
Andrew Bradstock
Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Bristol, UK
Sean Gill
School of Culture and Language, University of Southampton New College, UK
Anne Hogan
University College Chichester, UK
Sue Morgan
About the editors
HOWARD J. BOOTH Lecturer, Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Literature and Culture, Birkbeck College, University of London
CAROL MARIE ENGELHARDT Assistant Professor of History, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio
PHILIP HEALY Director of Academic and External Affairs, Westminster College, Oxford
LAURA LAUER Author
NEIL MCCAW Lecturer in English Studies, King Alfred's College, Winchester
LORI M. MILLER Researcher
FRANCIS O'GORMAN Lecturer in Victorian Literature, University of Leeds
FREDERICK S. RODEN Assistant Professor of English, University of Connecticut
J. R. WATSON Research Professor of English, University of Durham
CATHERINE WELLS-COLE Senior Lecturer in English Literature, University of Surrey, Roehampton
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Masculinity and Spirituality in Victorian Culture
Editors: Andrew Bradstock, Sean Gill, Anne Hogan, Sue Morgan