Williams (Tennessee State Univ.) explores cultural theology and how it connects to African American women diagnosed with, treated for, or surviving breast cancer. Williams interviews survivors about their faith during this period of their lives to better understand the way they see God and how that view affects how their response to their disease. Williams includes an extensive bibliography for her research, and attaches notes to each chapter. She opens up in the introduction about her subjective position on the issues she studies—her position in the clergy and the relationships she developed with the women she interviews. She addresses how she conducted her research in the introduction, making it the most academically focused chapter in the book; though less rigorous, the rest of the book offers a useful ethnography; Williams addresses the roles God plays for women with cancer and how they identify themselves during the treatment—for example, some identify their struggle with breast cancer as parallel to Jesus’s struggle; many see God as either judge or liberator. In the second half, Williams examines the way survivors are changed from their experiences and find new roles in their church.



Summing Up: Recommended. Advanced undergraduates and above; general readers.

Choice Reviews

Elizabeth Williams effectively joins the ideas and practices of cultural anthropology and theology to help the reader comprehend the understandings of a group of African American, cancer-surviving women. The foundation of William’s account are the voices of these women extended through her thoughtful reading and theoretically informed analysis. Her account is both intellectually elegant and of great utility for those providing medical care to African American women.

John van Willigen, University of Kentucky

Through interdisciplinary analysis and intersectional advocacy, Williams examines the theological anthropology of breast cancer’s impact not only on Black women’s bodies, but also the moral and spiritual implications it has for human flourishing amidst the ravages of disease. Through her ties to medical research and underserved communities, she deftly identifies and explores the ideological and intimate underpinnings that womanist thought and praxis has for offering moral visions of hope and holistic approaches to a more thoroughgoing anthropological understanding of what it means to survive and thrive amidst death-dealing circumstances.

Stacey Floyd-Thomas, Vanderbilt University