This dissertation examines the poetry of Dorothee Sölle, particularly her seven books of collected poems - Meditationen & Gebrauchstexte, Revolutionäre geduld, Fliegen lernen, Spiel doch von brot und rosen, Verrückt nach licht, Zivil und ungehörsam, Loben ohne lügen. At least two poems from each book are chosen for analysis based on the theological concept they express. It thus attempts to cover most of the concepts Sölle elaborates upon in her works. The second part of the thesis then focuses on the use of biblical passages in Dorothee Sölle's poetry, offering to view them in three subject cathegories based on her ways of working with them. Those are 1) 2) Re-telling the Bible, and 3) Contemplating upon the passages themselves. It further examines the synthesis of religious and social topics throughout her works, again suggesting to divide them into 1) Contemporary 2) Historical, and 3) Stuctural, based on the nature of the social topics portrayed in them. The thesis also explores Sölle's depiction of God, concluding that Sölle sees God in her poems not as a governing, dominating entity, but rather as a co-creator, God weeping and compassionate with the world. Sölle sees this image of God's empathy and involvement with man as an incentive for the man to become the same, to act similarly.

This study investigates the artistic expressions of women’s subjectivity in the prayer-poetry of Dorothee Sölle (1929-2003). My aim is to develop a critical introduction of Sölle’s poetry, in light of her theology and in conversation with literary theory, contextualising the reception of her work and the role of reception in subjectivity as these converge in her prayerful hermeneutic. In what I come to call “liturgical reception”, I provide a perspective on Sölle’s work on the basis of translations for an English speaking context. I draw on contemporary thought, ranging from feminism and liberation theology to hermeneutics, literary theory and philosophy, to shape the contour and scope of Sölle’s work. Addressing feminist debates that consider the role of gendered subjectivity in relation to pervasive hetero-normative structures, I facilitate Mary Gerhart’s notion of the “genric” and Luce Irigaray’s work on the “sexuate” to clarify the issues arising in Sölle’s poetry in the context of language and literature, as well as classic formulations of God and the Church. Thinking through gendered subjectivity allows liberation to emerge as a poetic process that opens up personal prayer for the wider community. In light of Sölle’s early comments on “Deprivatised Prayer” [1971], I argue for a theopoetic conception of prayer which takes the Death of God not as an end point, but as a starting point for a consciously critical negotiation of gendered faith identity in community. The conditions of the Death of God, to Sölle a sign for the loss of immediacy in the sense of naïveté (Ricoeur) – and therefore a loss of unproblematic intimacy – require prayer to take into account its gendered situation, since prayer is never not embodied. Sölle’s portrayals of woman-lover, mother and artist both rely upon and differentiate the relationship between emancipation and solidarity that I see addressed by liberation hermeneutics as the work of co-creation. Thus emerges a theopoetic vision that does not dissolve gender difference in favour of a “general” salvation, but offers a critique of the process of liberation itself tied into our gendered engagements with a theological reception of women at prayer.

The aim of this study is to explore questions regarding the concept of suffering and the relationship between a suffering world and a suffering God. The theology of Dorothee Soelle and Jürgen Moltmann are presented and then analysed through the feminist-theological lens of Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker. The feminist-theological perspective is used to highlight the theological strengths and weaknesses of Soelle and Moltmann. The issues of suffering can be found all through human history and across all religious views or life stances. Soelle and Moltmann show that to create a sustainable theology regarding suffering there needs to be an awareness of what image of God is presented. The conclusion of the study is that both Soelle and Moltmann use the term “apathy” throughout the theology that has been presented. The concept is regarded as a hindrance to forming and maintaining relationships and being able to sympathise with the suffering party. This hinderance is present both in the relationships between humans and between God and humanity. The focus of Soelle and Moltmann lies in the interpretation of God the Father and how the Father relates to the suffering of humanity. The importance of how the suffering of the Son is regarded is presented through the feminist theology of Brock and Parker. According to Brock and Parker, the church needs to examine how the suffering of Jesus is presented. If the suffering of Jesus is presented as an example of how suffering should be endured then the concept of Jesus willingly suffering might put pressure on the suffering individual to stay in the context that causes suffering.

This thesis explores the ideological underpinnings of political soteriological discourse. Through analyzing key texts in liberation theology, using critical theorists such as Theodor W. Adorno and Wendy Brown, I aim to understand to how this soteriological discourse respond to the predicaments that afflict theology in modernity – and to explore the ideological issues with these responses. I then turn to present day Swedish theological conversations concerning salvation and its political use, in order to discuss whether the issues exposed in liberation theology can be considered to continue to be a problem for the present discussion. I also discuss the ethical and theological obstacles connected to the translocation of liberation theology from the Latin America of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s to present day Sweden, or, in other words: from an exploited continent in protest against imperialism and capitalism, to the continent guilty of so much of the suffering that Latin American liberation theology condemned. What does it mean to turn to liberation theology in this context? I find, in this discourse, a certainty and assuredness concerning the salvation of all, which I find to be at least in part ideologically grounded. Instead, I suggest another direction for political revolutionary soteriology: to unsettle and disturb the modern image of the God-like man; to reconnect with the prehistoric fear of nature through a vigilant and restless immanent critique and through the subversive act of rituals and sacrifice.

The PhD. dissertation Written Voice examines how Walt Whitman and Henry Miller through books, confined textual products of modernity, strive to awaken the reader to a more perceptive and courageous life, provided that the reader is willing to suspend hermeneutics of suspicion and approach Leaves of Grass and Tropic of Cancer with hermeneutics of hunger. This is examined from linguistic, anthropological and theological vantage point of oral theory (M. Jousse, M. Parry, A. Lord, W. Ong, E. Havelock, J. Assmann, D. Abram, C. Geertz, T. Pettitt, J. Nohrnberg, D. Sölle, etc.). This work thus compares Leaves (1855) and Tropic of Cancer examining their paratextual, stylistic features, their genesis, the phenomenology of their I's, their ethos and story across the compositions. By "voluntary" usage of means of oral mnemonics such as parallelism/bilateralism (Jousse) - along with present tense, imitatio Christi and pedagogical usage of obscenity - both authors in their compositions attack the textual modern discourse, the posteriority, nostalgia and confinement of literature, restore the body, and aim for futurality of biblical kinetics. It is the reader's task, then, to hermeneutically resurrect the dead printed words of the compositions into their own "flesh" and action. The third part of the thesis...