Women, Wisdom, and Witness: Engaging Contexts in Conversation edited by Rosemary P. Carbine and Kathleen J. Dolphin (review)

This impressive volume offers a compelling mix of top-notch scholarship, theological innovation, ethical consternation, and dialogical conversation, as scholars of the New Voices Seminar (held at St. Mary's College, South Bend, Indiana) invite the reader to join their discussion.

The title of the volume indicates clearly that the investigations take as their point of departure women's experiences which will be engaged with Catholic traditions. All seventeen contributors to the volume are women scholars with expertise in theology, history, biblical studies, and ethics. Each places women's lives at the center of her work. Thus, the volume collectively brings theological engagement to the many places where women are – in the church, in the street and on the streets, in homes and hospitals, in the halls of Congress, in battered relationships and enslavement and in classrooms of higher education, in the art world and in scripture, in the movements for civil rights, and more. The volume captures an astounding range of contexts and a glimpse of the real diversity of women's lives which Catholic theology must engage. Written by thinkers at the cutting edge, the volume offers engaging reading for anyone interested in contemporary currents in the Catholic Church.

In addition to the compelling range of contexts examined in the essays, the employment of diverse methodologies makes the collection especially useful. What its editors put forth as its unique approach – a discussion at the end of each section which transcribes a conference call among the authors – allows these methodologies and contexts not only to mutually inform one another but also to witness a collaborative approach to critical engagement. There's no final word wrapping up these diversities neatly, but the conference calls invite the reader into a conversation that demonstrates how dialogue unfolds and opens new avenues for thought and insight.

There are so many exceptional essays in this collection, it would betray the volume to single out just a few in the short space available here. Each can be used to open up the many-faceted experiences of Catholic women today, and the conference call format will invite scholarly engagement and personal enrichment. Suffice it to say that this author tentatively entered the imaginative conference call the pages offered, and completed the final conference call almost fully expecting there to be more. By the end of the volume, readers will want to be part of the conversation and now know to whom to turn (that is, any one of these stellar scholars) to continue the investigation and conversation on Catholic women's writing and practices.