ABSTRACT
As sisters of the Association of British Carmels we are conscious that our presence in this volume alongside so many authors from the academy represents something of an innovation. In fact, looking over the eld of Teresian studies there appears to be a somewhat unbridgeable chasm separating those of us who live the life as Teresa envisaged it, from those who study her from a more formal or academic perspective. This rift is effectively illustrated in the opening pages of Peter Tyler’s Teresa of Avila: Doctor of the Soul (Tyler 2013: 1). ‘Scholars of literature, psychoanalysis, mysticism and feminism’ are all listed as stakeholders in contemporary Teresian scholarship; while the potential contribution of those who live the Teresian charism on a daily basis is passed over without comment. Conversely, when Prof. Tyler was invited to speak to one of our communities, there was genuine puzzlement that someone who was neither a Carmelite nor a religious should nd Teresa of interest. What these two examples illustrate, it seems, is something of a disconnect: two groups of people both reading Teresa, yet with little appreciation of the other’s existence or potential.
