MOUNT VERNON— Brewton-Parker History Professor, Dr. Amanda Allen, received word earlier this month from the editorial board of Lexington Books, an academic imprint of the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, that the book proposal she had submitted some months ago for their review has been accepted for publication. The board concluded that Dr. Allen’s proposal – a re-working of her doctoral dissertation entitled Flesh, Blood, and Puffed-Up Livers: The Theological, Political, and Social Contexts behind the 1550-51 Eucharistic Debate – will make a “significant scholarly contribution” to the field of English Reformation history. The completed manuscript should be ready for submission by the first week in October, and Lexington plans to publish the book both in hardcover and as an e-book sometime in 2018.
Allen’s book examines the contentious 16th-Century debate between Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury and a key leader in the English Reformation, and Stephen Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester for the Church of England, on the form and substance of the Eucharist in liturgical practice. While Cranmer advanced a more reformed understanding of the spiritual presence of Christ in the elements of the Eucharist, Gardiner held to the more traditional, Catholic view of a real, physical presence of Christ’s body and blood in the bread and the cup. As both bishops vied for recognition as the credible authority, the ensuing feud would shape religious practice and doctrine for centuries to come.
Lexington not only will send Allen’s book to a number of significant scholarly journals for review, but also will exhibit the book in their catalogs and at all relevant academic conferences that they attend. Dr. Robert Brian, Provost at Brewton-Parker, pointed out that students at the college soon will be able to look forward to studying history directly from the author of their text. “Dr. Allen is a stellar professor,” he said, “mentoring her students through relationship-building, while at the same time delivering history informed by current, significant research. We applaud Dr. Allen as she publishes her first book.”