Publisher's Synopsis
Ross examines two issues: first, that the conception of beauty in much contemporary theological aesthetics cannot be adequately understood without serious and critical attention to the role of gender. Second, that a feminist theological aesthetics can advance theological and ethical discussions. Ross explores some of the ways where beauty played a significant role in women's religious and cultural experiences. She develops a feminist theological critique of the commodification of beauty in North American and European culture. Concerns for 'beauty' have resulted in unhealthy obsessions with thinness and youth; at the other end of life, old age is increasingly seen as something abhorrent and to be postponed at all possible cost. Ross probes this 'skin-deep' obsession with beauty and proposes alternative ways of beautifying oneself and the world. She develops a conception of 'remaking the world' as the distinctive way that women have contributed to aesthetic and religion; and suggests how a reinterpretation of 'women's work' - domestic, artistic, - can enhance and expand traditional ideas of the relation of the aesthetic to religion and ethics.
