Approaches to Teaching Teresa of Ávila and the Spanish Mystics (review)

Many teachers and professors consider teaching the mystics a daunting task, especially if it is not their area of expertise. However, the anthology Approaches to Teaching Teresa of Ávila and the Spanish Mystics transforms this task into something tantalizing, as it excites educators about the prospective of incorporating the mystics into their class curricula and provides the history and concepts through which to teach them. It does so by demonstrating their importance in different disciplines and giving an array of suggestions that vary from ancillary materials and guiding questions to the application of theories and historical, social, and religious contexts.

The anthology is divided into two major parts: Materials and Approaches. The first part is based on the responses to the 2004-MLA survey wherein instructors shared their opinions about the materials and teaching aids that they have used in their classes, such as anthologies, translations, historical studies, literary studies, editions, music, internet resources, illustrated books, and films. The editor, Alison Weber, notes the availability and purpose of these resources taking into consideration their appropriateness depending on the level of the students—undergraduate, advanced, graduate—and the focus of the class—poetry, world literature, culture, history, survey, feminine literature, religious studies, mystics seminar, etc. This section also provides the reader with two essays concerning the translation and language of Teresa of Ávila's texts. In the first essay, Amanda Powel compares English translations, points out their strengths and weaknesses, and reiterates that, depending on the emphasis of the class, one translation may be better than another since each concentrates on communicating different aspects of Teresa's works. Conversely, Emily Scida emphasizes that Teresa's spelling reflects the phonetic changes of language that are present in her time period and that learning about the differences in her syntax, morphology and lexicon are of great help in understanding her text. In general, this section is invaluable for any instructor looking for established, alternative, and dynamic resources about the mystics.

Articles authored by experienced instructors and recognized experts in their fields comprise Approaches, the second part of this anthology, and are divided into four subsections: Historical Perspectives, Theoretical Perspectives, Specific Course Context, and Teaching Specific Texts. The articles vary in methodology and each uniquely contributes to this anthology by rendering interdisciplinary approximations to the mystics (art history, visual arts, music, neuroscience, literature, etc.) and by citing resources for in-depth analysis for each approach.

The articles depict Teresa of Ávila as a feminist, reformer, defender of her nuns, spiritual and pastoral teacher, theologian, counter-reformation saint, rhetorician, and religious reformer. They also relate how Teresa uses the perceived weakness of the female gender to defend women's spirituality and to found convents throughout Spain. Also, they convey biographical information and discuss the reforms she incorporates into her convents and her disregard for her nuns' purity of blood, nobility, and the ability to provide a dowry.

In addition to Teresa of Ávila, several articles focus on Spanish and Latin American mystics and writers that were anterior, contemporary, and posterior to Teresa of Ávila, discussing what constitutes a saint in different epochs, the political and religious agendas during the Counter Reformation, and the success and failure in being recognized as mystics—emphasizing the role of benefactors and the dangers encountered by the mystics when writing what was often considered unorthodox, and sometimes, even heretical, exposing them to the inquiry, and sometimes the punishment, of the Inquisition.

Furthermore, the articles within this section contain effective pedagogical strategies for engaging the students and guiding them to make connections and insightful comments through dynamic student-teacher and student-student interactions. Some authors include their processes for creating activities and modifying them so that they are successful; this allows the reader to realize what is easiest and hardest for students to grasp and how to accommodate for his or her own classes. They also discuss how to guide the students to read a text following the Golden Age levels of interpretation (literal, allegorical, moral, and...