Empowering Memory and Movement

Book Reviews | 71 Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Empowering Memory and Movement: Thinking and Working across Borders, Fortress, Minneapolis, MN, 2014. 535 pp. $49.00. ISBN: 9781451481815. Empowering Memory and Movement: Thinking and Working across Borders is a collection of writings by Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza and is the third volume in a series of collected works by Schüssler Fiorenza. This edited collection includes articles, speeches, interviews, and sermons; it distinguishes itself from the first two volumes by incorporating writings that specifically explore “the intersections between memory, history, rhetoric, and movement from the perspective of a critical feminist the*logy of liberation” (1). Empowering Memory and Movement covers much theoretical ground, but certain key concepts weave themselves through each of the different pieces. Because the scope of the collection is so broad, this review will focus on just a few of these key concepts. One of the concepts that Schüssler Fiorenza returns to the most frequently is her distinct theological approach, which she names a “critical feminist the*logy of liberation” (1). While at first glance this might seem like an unnecessary amalgamation of scholarly jargon, Schüssler Fiorenza is clear throughout the book about how each of these pieces informs her work (see especially 274–75). By outlining her own personal history early on in the book, she establishes how her experiences as a “resident alien” in many different contexts have helped her to see the necessity of crossing boundaries and remaining critical of theoretical approaches that are rooted in essentialist notions of identity (62–64). Thus, while Schüssler Fiorenza situates herself within a feminist framework, she also remains committed to a critical approach to feminist theology as a way of being accountable to the many different expressions of feminism throughout history and geographic location. She writes, “Only if the term ‘feminist/feminism’ is not reified as a fixed essentialist classification but is understood in rhetorical-political terms can it function as an ‘open-ended’ category that is to be questioned, destabilized, and redefined in ever-shifting historical-political situations of domination” (205). Schüssler Fiorenza’s critical feminist theology attempts to ground itself in movements of liberation and not remain tied to one particular social location. Closely related to this first concept is Schüssler Fiorenza’s use of the term “kyriarchy” to describe the system of domination that crosses boundaries beyond gender. She developed this concept, in part, as a response to the critique of the notion that patriarchy affects all women equally. Through the concept, she sought to “develop a feminist analysis that could uncover the interstructuring of sexism, racism, colonialism, and class exploitation in wo/men’s lives” (108). Instead of using patriarchy as a key analytical concept, Schüssler Fiorenza utilizes kyriarchy to think beyond the limiting notion of men versus women and see, instead, the way struggles for liberation are marked by the deeper tension between the notion that some are