"The essays in this collection explore the concept of 'transubstantiation', its adaptations and transformations in English and European culture from the Elizabethans to the twentieth century. Favoring an interartistic and comparative perspective, a wide range of critical approaches, from the philosophical to the semiological, from cultural materialism to gender and queer studies, it is brought to bear on authors ranging from Descartes, Shakespeare, Joyce to Macpherson, Madox Ford, and Winterson, as well as on contemporary sculpture, and an Italian adaptation of Conrad for the screen in an unusually comic vein. The volume will be of interest to those concerned with the cultural history of Christianity and with the remarkable critical and theoretical insights generated by contemporary approaches to this traditional theme."--Jacket.