Books by Margaret R Miles

Several years before his death, Augustine of Hippo reviewed his published works, commenting on his purpose in writing each, and correcting, from his present perspective, the mistakes he noticed. Inspired by Augustine''s Retractationes, Miles''s Recollections and Reconsiderations undertakes a similar project, a critical review of almost fifty years of her publications. Rereading and rethinking in chronological order effectively bonds life and thought into a corpus, a body of work with consistent values and interests. Such a review would be an illuminating project for any longtime scholar/student--both rewarding and humbling, an exercise in self-knowledge. Informed by a lifetime of studying Christian traditions, Miles concludes by describing both endemic problems with Christianity, and what she sees is its essence and beauty.""This is no mere intellectual memoir. St. Augustine writes, ''I feed you with what nourishes me.'' Miles embodies precisely this, and we are all nourished by our reading of her generous book. Unflinchingly honest, Miles teaches us that scholarship is more a way of life than a career. She teaches us that scholarly skills help us form life skills, and that the solitude of the scholar is perfected in dialogue. Among scholars she is the last of a breed.""--Martin Laird, OSA, Villanova UniversityMargaret R. Miles is Emerita Professor of Historical Theology at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California. She is most recently the author of The Long Goodbye: Dementia Diaries (2017).

Education is about learning to think. Much of what we call thinking, however, is a hodge-podge of repetitious self-talk, opinion, and cutting and pasting of second-hand ideas. Moreover, thinking in the present has often been alien to scholars who were tempted to think abstractly. But life and thought belong together and require each other, as Plotinus pointed out many centuries ago: ""[T]he object of contemplation is living and life, and the two together are one"" (Ennead 3.8.8). Presently, many women and men in the academic world are thinking concretely within the context of their own lives and with acknowledged accountability to broader communities with whom they think and to whom they are answerable. The essays in this volume consider Christianity as an aspect of North American culture, bringing the critical tools of the academy to thinking about some of the perplexing and pressing problems of contemporary public life.Three interactive and interdependent themes traverse these essays: gender, the effects of media culture, and institutions. Each of these themes has been central to Margaret Miles''s work for thirty years. Each understands corporeality as fundamental both to subjectivity and society. Miles finds that Christianity, critically appropriated, provides ideas and methods for thinking concretely about life in North American society. Through her prolific career Margaret Miles has focused her scholarly sensibilities on the history of Christianity in conjunction with real and abiding social concerns. Not least of these are the problems and promises of gender relations. In this collection of essays, she turns her critical gaze upon food and film, media and mythology, delight and desire, as she examines the verbal and visual dimensions that comprise institutional, personal, communal, and artistic bodies. Miles mines the history of Christianity for ways to overcome our contemporary dis-ease with bodies. Incisively descriptive, Miles nonetheless remains unafraid to write prescriptions.--S. Brent Plate, author of Blasphemy: Art that Offends and Religion and Film: Cinema and the Re-Creation of the WorldThis collection of essays, written over two decades, displays Margaret Miles''s remarkable breadth as a theologian, administrator, and cultural critic. With equal adeptness, she brings ancient theological insights to bear on contemporary culture and sheds critical, historical light on Christianity. The essays are written with elegance, humor, and acuity, and their subject matter offers something for almost everyone--from film to sexuality, asceticism to pleasure, philosophical reflection to institutional strategy. But they are unified by a single quest--for embodied, passionate life in all its fullness. Following that pilgrimage through these essays, one cannot help but breathe and think more deeply.--Kathleen Sands, Associate Professor and Director of Religious Studies at the University of Massachusetts, BostonMargaret R. Miles is Emerita Professor of Historical Theology, the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley. She was Bussey Professor of Theology at the Harvard University Divinity School until 1996, when she became Dean and Academic Vice President of the Graduate Theological Union. Her books include A Complex Delight: The Secularization of the Breast, 1350-1750 (2008), Rereading Historical Theology: Before, During, and After Augustine (2008), The Word Made Flesh: A History of Christian Thought (2005), and Plotinus on Body and Beauty (1999).

Augustine of Hippo is arguably the most influential author in the history of Christian thought and institutions. Yet he has been revered by some reviewers and vilified by others. Contemporary critical approaches to historical authors can illuminate features of Augustine''s thought and activities that are not noticed when reviewers'' attention is either exclusively sympathetic or intransigently critical. Anyone who seeks to present an Augustine who has relevance for the twenty-first century must somehow hold together delight in the beauty of his prose and the profundity of his thought with dismay over some of the intentions and effects of his teachings. The essays in this book endeavor to read Augustine simultaneously critically and appreciatively. Miles places his thought in the context of his classical heritage and notices how pervasive in later Christian authors are the themes that informed Augustine''s thought. Understanding his writings as a passionate effort to describe a metaphysical universe that accounts for the endlessly fascinating mystery of embodied life makes many of Augustine''s proposals accessible, useful, and delightful in the context of contemporary quandaries and issues. His conclusions are less important than his method: In Augustine, knowledge and life mutually illuminate, energize, and critique each other, exemplifying the practice of a fully human life. Exploring some of his most persistent themes, these essays seek to show how Augustine''s theology works.""For years Margaret Miles has been patiently honoring the question of the body in historical theology. In this collection of sixteen of her best essays, she tracks the ambivalences in Augustine''s love of the flesh, finds a Platonism with an earthly pull, sustains her sense of an antique social location, and finishes with a flourish of mystics and reformers--all successors to an Augustinian passion. An historian of great cultural sensitivity, Miles is not afraid to meet the past under the skin of contemporary life (where it, in fact, has always been). In the art of critical sympathy, she has no peer.""--James Wetzel, Villanova University""Margaret Miles has long been one of the most imaginative and suggestive readers of Augustine and his thought. Combining the highest standards of critical historical scholarship with an extraordinary ability to penetrate to the heart of Augustine''s thought, Miles is always worth reading and reading over. These essays should be required reading for all interested in Augustine and--equally importantly--in his legacy in the Christian tradition.""--Lewis Ayres, Candler School of Theology, Emory University""This book does what few academic books attempt--a real engagement and conversation with an ancient author, letting our thoughts and views interact with his. As Miles touches on diverse topics of interest to any modern person, others are also brought into the conversation--not just Augustine, but also Plato, Aristotle, Calvin, and Luther. Whether one wishes to discredit or to appropriate Augustine''s views, one will find here much material that challenges and leads to further discussion."" --Kim Paffenroth, Iona College""Reading Miles reading Augustine is a delight and a window on the development of modern critical theory applied to historical theology. Miles is simply brilliant and her Augustine shines with a brilliance borne of Miles''s careful and close reading, important new theories, and her love of Augustine that brings the ancient theologian to life. This is a significant collection of essays that no serious historian of theology should miss."" --Richard Valantasis, Candler School of Theology, Emory University""In these sixteen essays, Miles claims--against an ''escapist transcendence''--that bodies are central to theological knowledge. She explores themes of desire, beauty, and happiness in their relation to the body in the writings of Augustine''s philosophical predecessors, of Augustine (our ''fellow pilg

In Augustine and the Fundamentalist''s Daughter, Margaret Miles weaves her memoirs together with reflections on Augustine''s Confessions. Having read and reread Augustine''s Confessions, in admiration as well as frustration, over the past thirty-five years, Miles brings her memories of childhood and youth in a fundamentalist home into conversation with Augustine''s effort to understand his life. The result is a fascinating work of autobiographical and theological reflection. Moreover, this project brings together a rare combination of insights on fundamentalists'' convictions and habits of mind, as well as on differences among fundamentalists. Such reflections are especially urgent in this time in which fundamentalism is prominent in political and social discourse.""For over thirty years we have read and heard Margaret Miles on Augustine, and her insights on this spectacular ancient have been compelling. Now we read Miles in Augustine''s Confessions, and her self-disclosure is as compelling as Augustine''s. This is a soul-rending book that opens the world of Augustine to the world of a fundamentalist''s daughter. We have known for a long time that scholarly study reflects the life experience of the scholar, but Miles has taken this both to new heights and new depths. This book reveals both Augustine and the world of a fundamentalist, and it is simply stunning in its depth of disclosure and revelation--all what we have come to expect from Augustine and now from Miles.""-Richard ValantasisCo-director, Institute for Contemplative Living, Santa FeCanon Theologian for Formation and Education, Diocese of the Rio Grande""Augustine and the Fundamentalist''s Daughter is a revealing, lively, and deeply engrossing conversation among many speakers, from Saint Augustine to modern poets to the multiple voices age and insight have given Professor Miles on her own journey from fundamentalism to wisdom. In this book, we meet the rich tapestry of life''s defeats, fears, delights, and changes in the vignettes of memories narrated from either Augustine''s new state of restful faith or Margaret Miles''s hard-won place of gracefully honest reflection. Find a quiet room, pull up a chair, and listen to this superb scholar and teacher talk with her longtime mentor, Augustine, about life, love, sex, faith, and family. It is a conversation not to be missed.""-Mary Ann Tolbert George H. Atkinson Professor of Biblical StudiesVice President of Academic Affairs and DeanPacific School of Religion, BerkeleyMargaret R. Miles is Emerita Professor of Historical Theology at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley. She is the author of A Complex Delight: The Secularization of the Breast, 1350-1750 (2008).

Description:This book of conversations between Margaret R. Miles and Hiroko Sakomura compares the experiences of two women who grew up in different societies, with different educations, different professions, and different religious orientations. Reflecting on the different ways in which Japanese and American societies inhibited and enabled them, these two women share their struggles, difficulties, and achievements. All of this is set in the context of one of the most radical social movements in the history of the world, as women are gaining increments of equality with men in designing and administering the institutions of public life with opportunities, dangers, and rewards. This is a moment in which a critical mass of women "want it all now," in the best sense of the phrase, seeking to preserve and reinterpret traditional values while exercising their capabilities and skills both in the home and in public life. This book is the memoir of two women''s painful and joyful experiences in "getting here from there."Endorsements:"Getting Here from There affords the reader a rare opportunity to listen in on a dialogue between two women who took risks in daily life and with ideas, and who invented themselves as highly accomplished professionals. Across differences of culture, age, and vocation, Miles and Sakomura create a common ground for exploring shared values and life concerns. Their wisdom, erudition, and straight-up common sense are a profound inspiration to all of us to seek the lives we envision."-Deborah J. HaynesUniversity of Colorado-Boulder "Margaret R. Miles and Hiroko Sakomura draw out the best in one another despite their significant differences. Their lives as professor and producer, American and Japanese, Christian and Buddhist are rich sources of well-distilled wisdom. Their shared commitments to families and selves, to work and pleasure, to substance and style, make them ideal discussion partners. How fortuitous that they found one another and how lucky for readers that they chose to share their conversations widely."-Mary E. HuntWomen''s Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual (WATER)About the Contributor(s):Margaret R. Miles is Emerita Professor at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. She taught at Harvard Divinity School for eighteen years and is the author of numerous books, including a memoir: Augustine and the Fundamentalist''s Daughter (2011). Hiroko Sakomura has produced many exhibitions worldwide, including The Vision and Craft of Sinjo Ito (2008); Wisdom and Compassion (1997); Audrey Hepburn (1998); Noh at the Met (1993); and Salvatore Ferragamo (1998).

Description:In Augustine and the Fundamentalist''s Daughter, Margaret Miles weaves her memoirs together with reflections on Augustine''s Confessions. Having read and reread Augustine''s Confessions, in admiration as well as frustration, over the past thirty-five years, Miles brings her memories of childhood and youth in a fundamentalist home into conversation with Augustine''s effort to understand his life. The result is a fascinating work of autobiographical and theological reflection. Moreover, this project brings together a rare combination of insights on fundamentalists'' convictions and habits of mind, as well as on differences among fundamentalists. Such reflections are especially urgent in this time in which fundamentalism is prominent in political and social discourse.Endorsements:""For over thirty years we have read and heard Margaret Miles on Augustine, and her insights on this spectacular ancient have been compelling. Now we read Miles in Augustine''s Confessions, and her self-disclosure is as compelling as Augustine''s. This is a soul-rending book that opens the world of Augustine to the world of a fundamentalist''s daughter. We have known for a long time that scholarly study reflects the life experience of the scholar, but Miles has taken this both to new heights and new depths. This book reveals both Augustine and the world of a fundamentalist, and it is simply stunning in its depth of disclosure and revelation--all what we have come to expect from Augustine and now from Miles.""-Richard ValantasisCo-director, Institute for Contemplative Living, Santa FeCanon Theologian for Formation and Education, Diocese of the Rio Grande""Augustine and the Fundamentalist''s Daughter is a revealing, lively, and deeply engrossing conversation among many speakers, from Saint Augustine to modern poets to the multiple voices age and insight have given Professor Miles on her own journey from fundamentalism to wisdom. In this book, we meet the rich tapestry of life''s defeats, fears, delights, and changes in the vignettes of memories narrated from either Augustine''s new state of restful faith or Margaret Miles''s hard-won place of gracefully honest reflection. Find a quiet room, pull up a chair, and listen to this superb scholar and teacher talk with her longtime mentor, Augustine, about life, love, sex, faith, and family. It is a conversation not to be missed.""-Mary Ann Tolbert George H. Atkinson Professor of Biblical StudiesVice President of Academic Affairs and DeanPacific School of Religion, BerkeleyAbout the Contributor(s):Margaret R. Miles is Emerita Professor of Historical Theology at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley. She is the author of A Complex Delight: The Secularization of the Breast, 1350-1750 (2008).

Description:Education is about learning to think. Much of what we call thinking, however, is a hodge-podge of repetitious self-talk, opinion, and cutting and pasting of second-hand ideas. Moreover, thinking in the present has often been alien to scholars who were tempted to think abstractly. But life and thought belong together and require each other, as Plotinus pointed out many centuries ago: ""[T]he object of contemplation is living and life, and the two together are one"" (Ennead 3.8.8). Presently, many women and men in the academic world are thinking concretely within the context of their own lives and with acknowledged accountability to broader communities with whom they think and to whom they are answerable. The essays in this volume consider Christianity as an aspect of North American culture, bringing the critical tools of the academy to thinking about some of the perplexing and pressing problems of contemporary public life.Three interactive and interdependent themes traverse these essays: gender, the effects of media culture, and institutions. Each of these themes has been central to Margaret Miles''s work for thirty years. Each understands corporeality as fundamental both to subjectivity and society. Miles finds that Christianity, critically appropriated, provides ideas and methods for thinking concretely about life in North American society. Endorsements:Through her prolific career Margaret Miles has focused her scholarly sensibilities on the history of Christianity in conjunction with real and abiding social concerns. Not least of these are the problems and promises of gender relations. In this collection of essays, she turns her critical gaze upon food and film, media and mythology, delight and desire, as she examines the verbal and visual dimensions that comprise institutional, personal, communal, and artistic bodies. Miles mines the history of Christianity for ways to overcome our contemporary dis-ease with bodies. Incisively descriptive, Miles nonetheless remains unafraid to write prescriptions.--S. Brent Plate, author of Blasphemy: Art that Offends and Religion and Film: Cinema and the Re-Creation of the WorldThis collection of essays, written over two decades, displays Margaret Miles''s remarkable breadth as a theologian, administrator, and cultural critic. With equal adeptness, she brings ancient theological insights to bear on contemporary culture and sheds critical, historical light on Christianity. The essays are written with elegance, humor, and acuity, and their subject matter offers something for almost everyone--from film to sexuality, asceticism to pleasure, philosophical reflection to institutional strategy. But they are unified by a single quest--for embodied, passionate life in all its fullness. Following that pilgrimage through these essays, one cannot help but breathe and think more deeply.--Kathleen Sands, Associate Professor and Director of Religious Studies at the University of Massachusetts, BostonAbout the Contributor(s):Margaret R. Miles is Emerita Professor of Historical Theology, the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley. She was Bussey Professor of Theology at the Harvard University Divinity School until 1996, when she became Dean and Academic Vice President of the Graduate Theological Union. Her books include A Complex Delight: The Secularization of the Breast, 1350-1750 (2008), Rereading Historical Theology: Before, During, and After Augustine (2008), The Word Made Flesh: A History of Christian Thought (2005), and Plotinus on Body and Beauty (1999).

Description:Augustine of Hippo is arguably the most influential author in the history of Christian thought and institutions. Yet he has been revered by some reviewers and vilified by others. Contemporary critical approaches to historical authors can illuminate features of Augustine''s thought and activities that are not noticed when reviewers'' attention is either exclusively sympathetic or intransigently critical. Anyone who seeks to present an Augustine who has relevance for the twenty-first century must somehow hold together delight in the beauty of his prose and the profundity of his thought with dismay over some of the intentions and effects of his teachings. The essays in this book endeavor to read Augustine simultaneously critically and appreciatively. Miles places his thought in the context of his classical heritage and notices how pervasive in later Christian authors are the themes that informed Augustine''s thought. Understanding his writings as a passionate effort to describe a metaphysical universe that accounts for the endlessly fascinating mystery of embodied life makes many of Augustine''s proposals accessible, useful, and delightful in the context of contemporary quandaries and issues. His conclusions are less important than his method: In Augustine, knowledge and life mutually illuminate, energize, and critique each other, exemplifying the practice of a fully human life. Exploring some of his most persistent themes, these essays seek to show how Augustine''s theology works.Endorsements:""For years Margaret Miles has been patiently honoring the question of the body in historical theology. In this collection of sixteen of her best essays, she tracks the ambivalences in Augustine''s love of the flesh, finds a Platonism with an earthly pull, sustains her sense of an antique social location, and finishes with a flourish of mystics and reformers--all successors to an Augustinian passion. An historian of great cultural sensitivity, Miles is not afraid to meet the past under the skin of contemporary life (where it, in fact, has always been). In the art of critical sympathy, she has no peer.""--James Wetzel, Villanova University""Margaret Miles has long been one of the most imaginative and suggestive readers of Augustine and his thought. Combining the highest standards of critical historical scholarship with an extraordinary ability to penetrate to the heart of Augustine''s thought, Miles is always worth reading and reading over. These essays should be required reading for all interested in Augustine and--equally importantly--in his legacy in the Christian tradition.""--Lewis Ayres, Candler School of Theology, Emory University""This book does what few academic books attempt--a real engagement and conversation with an ancient author, letting our thoughts and views interact with his. As Miles touches on diverse topics of interest to any modern person, others are also brought into the conversation--not just Augustine, but also Plato, Aristotle, Calvin, and Luther. Whether one wishes to discredit or to appropriate Augustine''s views, one will find here much material that challenges and leads to further discussion."" --Kim Paffenroth, Iona College""Reading Miles reading Augustine is a delight and a window on the development of modern critical theory applied to historical theology.  Miles is simply brilliant and her Augustine shines with a brilliance borne of Miles''s careful and close reading, important new theories, and her love of Augustine that brings the ancient theologian to life.  This is a significant collection of essays that no serious historian of theology should miss."" --Richard Valantasis, Candler School of Theology, Emory University""In these sixteen essays, Miles claims--against an ''escapist transcendence''--that bodies are central to theological knowledge. She explores themes of desire, beauty, and happiness in their relation to the body in the writings of Augustine''s philosophical predecessors,