In an age of globalization, where borders seem to be disappearing everywhere 'between nations, religions, and even within families 'it is easy to believe our reactions to difference are vanishing as well. Bringing together the latest insights from constructive theology, contemporary continental theory, and trauma studies, Michele Saracino shows how deceiving and even deadly this assumption can be. She argues that, in the post '9/11 era, Christians are obligated now more than ever to be vigilant about difference, to be attentive to the emotional dissonance that encountering others incites, and to acknowledge it before border disputes escalate into violence. We are neither so different that we have nothing to talk about nor so similar that we have everything to celebrate. Instead, for Saracino, we are caught in the middle at porous borders, at in-between spaces, which cause consternation, fear, anger, and even rage. By embracing these conflicting emotions that accompany border life, Saracino claims that Christians can honor the person and work of Jesus Christ and the mystery of the incarnation, and perhaps become living memorials to those who have suffered trauma al in the name of their being different.

"Michele Saracino is an associate professor of religious studies at Manhattan College in Riverdale, New York. She is the author of "On Being Human: A Conversation with Lonergan and Levinas "and researches and teaches on the intersections between theology and culture."

Enfleshing Theology honors and engages the life work of M. Shawn Copeland, whose theology is groundbreaking and prophetic, traversing the fields of Catholic Theology, Black Theology, Womanist Thought, and Semiotics. The book opens with a brief introduction, and then moves to an interview with Copeland, which connects her theology to her life stories. The conversation with Copeland also provides a backdrop to the seventeen essays that follow, extending Copeland's theological worldview. The contributions are divided according to the following sections: embodiment, discipleship, and politics. The essays in the section entitled "Engaging Embodiment" critically reflect on the importance of embodiment in Christian theology and contemporary culture. Following Copeland's lead, authors in this section theorize and theologize the body, particularly (but not limited to) Black women's bodies, as a locus theologicus that reveals, mediates, and shapes the splendor and suffering reality of human existence. The next section, entitled "Engaging Discipleship," focuses on the concrete challenges of following Jesus in today's world. The essays included in this section reflect on Copeland's focus on Jesus' particularity in terms of his solidarity with and for others. Discipleship is about modeling and mentoring, so scholars in this section also comment on Copeland's contribution to teaching and pedagogy. The last section, entitled "Engaging the Political," interrogates the political implications of the theological. It is noteworthy that there are two trajectories of the political here, one is Copeland's development of political theology through the lens of Canadian Jesuit theologian, Bernard Lonergan. The other trajectory focuses on the work of theology in contemporary art and politics. These three sections are fluid and overlap with one another. Several of the articles on embodiment speak to questions of solidarity and a few of the essays on discipleship clearly present as political. The ways in which each of the contributions in this volume overlap with each other attests to the complex nature of doing constructive theology today, and even more how Copeland's work is at the forefront of that multi-layered, polyvalent, intersectional theological work.

Reinhold Niebuhr argued that one of the fundamental challenges to human existence is the anxiety caused by our desire to be perfect and godlike while knowing we are limited and mortal. This book explores how human adornment practices negotiate anxieties about our finitude. Through our clothing, we often shield ourselves from feeling our human frailty and from having others detect our emotional, physical, and spiritual vulnerabilities. Looking at the incarnation as a form of "dress," Saracino claims that getting naked with Jesus or embracing our vulnerability is our only hope at creating life-giving relationships with God and others in the global world.