The sacred and the feminine : imagination and sexual difference

NEW SERIES ANNOUNCEMENTNew Encounters: Arts, Cultures, ConceptsSeries Editor: Griselda PollockThis timely new series, with eminent art historian and cultural analyst Griselda Pollock as series editor, brings together major international commentators and also introduces a new generation of emerging scholars.
Resisting both the rejection of theory and the current displacement of art history in favour of visual culture, New Encounters instead rejuvenate both approaches. Marked out by its critical engagement with and close informed readings of images, texts and cultural events, this series employs new feminist, postcolonial and queer perspectives. New Encounters also showcases exciting new volumes which revisit key figures in twentieth century art through highly original feminist approaches. The notion of a special intimacy between ""the feminine and the sacred"" has received significant attention since the publication of Julia Kristeva and Cathérine Clément's famous ecumenical ""conversation"" of the same name which focused on the relationship between meaning and the body at whose interface the feminine is positioned. Brought to the wider public as the ""sacred feminine"", it has also made its mark on popular culture. Taking up the debate and moving beyond anthropology or theology, writers from varied ethnic, geo-cultural and religious perspectives here join with secular cultural analysts to explore the sacred and the feminine in art, architecture, literature, art history, music, philosophy, theology, critical theory and cultural studies. The book addresses key issues in feminist questions of creativity, the imaginary and the sacred as ""otherness"", exploring the ways in which visual practices have explored this rich, contested and highly charged territory.