Monasticism

Clark, Francis. The "Gregorian" Dialogues and the Origins of Benedictine Monasticism. Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 2003. Updates the controversy and refutes attempted rebuttals of the 1987 work.

——. The Pseudo-Gregorian Dialogues. 2 vols. Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1987. Summarized 1:10-30, the argument challenges the authorship of the Dialogues traditionally ascribed to Gregory I. See sidebar.

Dunn, Marilyn. The Emergence of Monasticism: From the Desert Fathers to the Early Middle Ages. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000. Covers East and West to c. 650.

Jantzen, Grace. Power, Gender, and Christian Mysticism. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Reconceptualizes methodologies for interpreting male and female monastic mystics.

Johnston, William M., ed. Encyclopedia of Monasticism. Chicago and London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2000. More than 500 articles on Buddhist and Christian monasticism of all periods and places with bibliographies. Whalen Lai's twelve articles abound in comparisons.

Kardong, Terrence, OSB. "Who Wrote the Dialogues of Saint Gregory? A Report on a Controversy." Cistercian Studies Quarterly 39:1 (2004): 31–39. Endorses Francis Clark's conclusions and acknowledges the Rule as our sole source of knowledge about Benedict.

McNamara, Jo Ann Kay. Sisters in Arms: Catholic Nuns through Two Millennia. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996. Compares male and female Christian monastics in depth with massive bibliography.

Mitchell, Donald W., and James A. Wiseman, OSB, eds. The Gethsemani Encounter: A Dialogue on the Spiritual Life by Buddhist and Christian Monastics. New York: Continuum, 1998. Judicious essays by twenty-four authors on a wide range of issues.

Pranger, M.B. The Artificiality of Christianity: Essays on the Poetics of Monasticism. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2003. Exhilarating reassessment of modes of reading and remembering among Western Christian monastics to 1700.

Senn, Frank C. Christian Liturgy: Catholic and Evangelical. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997. Delineates Western monastic liturgies in chapters 4–7, 16–18.

Speake, Graham. Mount Athos: Renewal in Paradise. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. Superbly illustrated volume evokes Orthodox monasticism's archetypal site.

Waaijman, Kees. Spirituality: Forms, Foundations, Methods. Translated by John Vriend. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters, 2002. Reconfigures methodology in light of dozens of case studies of Christian monastics.