Anna Hennessey

Sacred Pregnancy

World Religions

“In exploring contemporary forms of ritual and spiritual community focused on pregnancy, birth, and motherhood in the United States, Ann Duncan's Sacred Pregnancy contributes meaningfully not only to the field of religious studies but also to motherhood studies, secular studies, sociology, cultural anthropology, and feminist discourse. Duncan's work takes into consideration the evolving landscape of twenty-first-century American religion, looking especially at how unaffiliated religious individuals who live outside the bounds of institutional religion are undergoing important rites of passage when they become parents. Her close examination of the Sacred Living Movement and other communities devoted to spiritual reproductive services in the United States provides her readers with an understanding of how pregnancy, birth, and motherhood are sacralized and ritualized in the modern world.”