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 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 the feminist movement, one of the most radical social movements in the twentieth century, 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'.

In Augustine and the Fundamentalist's Daughter, Margaret Miles weaves her memoirs together with refl ections 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. This project brings together a rare combination of insights on fundamentalists' convictions and habits of mind. Such reflections are especially urgent in this time in which fundamentalism is prominent in political and social discourse.

An archaeological study of the City Eleusinion in Athens, the sanctuary of Eleusinian Demeter and the city terminus for the annual Eleusinian Mysteries. The book presents the stratigraphical evidence from excavations of a part of the sanctuary (conducted in the 1930s and 1959-1960), the remains of the Temple of Triptolemos, a Hellenistic stoa, and a propylon, and contains extensive descriptions of the context pottery, a discussion of the ritual vessel plemochoe, and catalogues of inscriptions, sculpture, and architectural pieces from the sanctuary. There is a survey of the topography of the sanctuary and its environs on the North Slope of the Acropolis, and a discussion of its relationship to Eleusis and its position as a landmark within the city of Athens. Since a significant portion of the sanctuary still lies unexcavated under the modern city, the book includes a detailed assessment of the only evidence known so far for the various phases of use of the sanctuary, from the earliest evidence of the 7th century B.C. to the late antique period.

On Memory, Marriage, Tears, and Meditation offers readers the tools for reading Augustine's journey to human emotions through his writings on feeling, marriage, conversion, and meditation. Augustine understood that feeling, not rationality, gathers and reveals the deep longing of the whole person. Throughout his ecclesiastical career, he discussed marriage in sermons, letters, and treatises from the perspective of his own experience. Miles examines Augustine's prototypes for conversion - reading and conversion; sacrifice and conversion; and the importance of friends in what might be considered a subjective and private process. Meditation was central to Augustine's Christian life and Miles argues that his practice of meditation suggests that penitence included a rich range of feeling leading to gratitude, peace, wonder, and love.

Synopsis: The Wendell Cocktail describes a major social problem, exemplified by the journals of a person with coexisting conditions--mental illness and addiction. Although there are resources for people with each of these conditions--psychiatry for mental illness and twelve-step programs for addiction--there are few effective resources for people with both. Since about half of the mentally ill medicate with an addiction, an increasingly large percentage of the American population is left without adequate care. Wendell's journals illuminate the complexity of a tormented mind that is nevertheless capable of exquisite enjoyment of music, natural beauty, and delight in the observation of birds and animals. The book's conclusion suggests approaches to understanding and better providing for persons with addiction and mental illness. Endorsements: "Margaret R. Miles is one of the most insightful religious thinkers of our time. The breadth of her historical understanding of Western thought and art, and her sensitive observations about the changing roles of women over time, have been clearly established in her other books. In this book she advances our understanding of mental illness and drug addiction." --Malcolm Young, Rector of Christ Episcopal Church in Los Altos, California "Margaret R. Miles has crafted a narrative marked by honesty and wisdom. A sister's promise and devotion, added to a brother's pain and courage, are key ingredients for The Wendell Cocktail. The suffering and anger voiced in her brother's journal entries are palpable. They bear convincing witness to the struggles of those living with mental illness and addiction in a culture that does not deal well with either." --Flora Keshgegian, Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology, Graduate Theological Union "This unusually personal volume is by turns painful, insightful, and disturbing, even occasionally beautiful and humorous, illuminating the dark corners of addiction and mental illness by skillfully interweaving the journals of an acute sufferer with the commentary of a compassionate observer--an observer who is also a distinguished historian and thinker. Deliberately avoiding neat lessons and pat answers, Margaret R. Miles nevertheless ensures that, through sharing her brother's story, his intense pain is not wasted." --Robert MacSwain, Assistant Professor of Theology and Christian Ethics, The University of the South "The Wendell Cocktail considers the fierce landscape of mental illness and addiction. By opening her own journal alongside those of her brother, Miles speaks not about but from the experience. . . . If you've ever wanted to get inside the head of someone with this condition, this book points the path. And if you've ever needed language to express your own experience, Wendell's journals, graciously edited and shared, give an account from a fellow-traveler." --Martha E. Stortz, Professor for Religion and Vocation, Augsburg College Author Biography: Margaret R. Miles is Emerita Professor of Historical Theology, The Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley. Her most recent books are Augustine and the Fundamentalist's Daughter (2011) and Getting Here from There: Conversations on Life and Work (with Hiroko Sakomura, 2011).

The essays in Augustine and Psychology, edited by Sandra Lee Dixon, John Doody, and Kim Paffenroth, relate St. Augustine to the modern theory and practice of psychology in several ways. The contributors analyze Augustine's own examination of himself (and occasionally others) to see to what extent he himself was a "doctor" or practiced "therapy" in ways that we can recognize and appreciate; they find connections between his theories of memory and mind, and modern theories of the same; they consider the influences and context in which he worked, and how those affected him and his ideas of the mind and soul; and, lastly, the contributors subject St. Augustine to the scrutiny of modern psychoanalysis (and critique such scrutiny where appropriate).

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. Haynes University 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. Hunt Women'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 Valantasis Co-director, Institute for Contemplative Living, Santa Fe Canon 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 Studies Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley About 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 World This 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, Boston About 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).