Preface / Introduction / I. Heresy and modern literature -- Heresy and the modernist imagination / "No, I better not say it. I might get punished": misotheism and self-creation in Tomás Rivera's ... And the earth did not devour him / The absolute heterodoxy of William Blake / II. Medieval heresy -- Unbelief and the problem of heresy : a late medieval context / The joys of heresy : benefits for women in medieval heretical sects / III. Heretical theology -- Saint Augustine : the neoplatonic father of heretical Orthodoxy / Making the world : against spirituality / The heresy of humor : theological responses to laughter / IV. From the creators : the artists' corner -- The novelist as heretic / Beautiful heresy : a visual artist's re-appropriation of scripture / Pop heresy : songwriting at the edge of the speakable / Adapting candide for the stage / Epilogue : heretical unmaking