Christian Girls Research Articles

Sainte Marie-Jeanne

Sainte Marie-Jeanne* Tara Ison (bio) France, 1941. The French government, led by Marshal Pétain in Vichy, is collaborating with Hitler in exchange for the appearance of a token sovereignty. Danielle is a twelve-year-old Jewish girl, who grew up in a secular, academic household in Paris, and is now living as a “hidden child” with a Catholic family in a small village in the unoccupied zone. Her father was killed in the early days of the war, and her mother has gone underground; her “aunt” Berthe and “uncle” Claude (her grandmother’s former maid and butler), agreed to take her in and pass her off as their niece, “Marie-Jeanne,” in exchange for extra illicit ration tickets. This excerpt appears after Danielle/Marie-Jeanne has been living in the village for six months; the early months were quite traumatic, as she had to come to terms with her father’s death, what she feels is her mother’s abandonment of her, living with a family of complete strangers, and the need to “pass” as a Catholic girl—it has been made very clear to her how high the stakes are, that if she makes even the slightest mistake and is found out, the police will come and kill the entire family. By now, Danielle feels she has adjusted quite well to this new life and identity—but there are ongoing challenges, and ongoing threats … [End Page 98] October 1941 La Perinne, France Monsieur Monzie is delighted. He has been waiting months for a package to arrive from Vichy, supplies for the latest special school project. He gets so excitable about such things, clapping his hands, fussing with his wire spectacles, and working his eyebrows. He joins all the children in singing to Marshal Pétain every morning— You have worked ceaselesslyFor the common salvation!For giving us your life,Your genius and your faith!Marshal, we are here! —his hands clutching his heaving chest, his eyes moist. Because our dear Marshal loves you children, he quotes from the newsreels, he loves children who join him in the rebuilding of our proud nation! He loves children who work hard and sacrifice and obey! He practically jumps up and down when students write correct answers on the board: Yes, yes! he proclaims. Danielle and her friend Genevieve agree he is foppish and odd; they imitate him—Yes, yes? Yes, yes!—as a joke together, giggling, when they are alone. For the first project of the new school year each student had to learn and report everything about the saint for which they were named. The younger students were to draw pictures of their saint performing whatever they became a saint for, but the older students were to write a story about their saint’s miraculous act, and why the saint was so holy he or she deserved to be a saint. Danielle remembered, briefly, before the sick feeling came to her stomach and the pain in her head, her first night here, the last night she was still Danielle. How long ago it seemed! Her mother and that strange woman, Berthe, hunched over a candle in the smoky, cabbage-smelling house, whispering about false identity papers while that strange man Claude paced and cracked his knuckles, all of them ignoring her and busy coming up with the first lie, the biggest, most important lie. The lie of a name. Berthe wanted to call her “Marie,” the most Christian name there is, she’d said, and the purest of all women, and also “Jeanne,” such a good holy girl to listen to saints’ voices and die to save France. So Danielle, no, Marie-Jeanne, with a choice between the Virgin Mary or Jeanne [End Page 99] d’Arc, chose Jeanne. It would be too easy to make a mistake with Mary, to get a detail wrong about Jesus or some crazy thing like the Immaculate Conception. She had Berthe’s old copy of A Children’s Catechism, which was just endless lists of questions and answers she was supposed to memorize so she’d know everything about being a good Catholic and Christian girl, Who is God? and What...

Psychological Analysis of Sheikh San’aan by Using TAT

In this research, dramatic story of Sheikh San’aan, which is one of the stories in Conference of the Birds written by Attar Neyshaburi in the 6th century hegira, is psychologically analyzed using Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), and analytical and descriptive methods. Sheikh San’aan is the hero of the story and a hermit who fell in love with a Christian girl in senility. The needs of hero's id were confronted by his superego's presses. Change and Travel were of the most distinguished needs and Affliction was the most prominent press of the hero. The process of change facilitated by ego throughout the story leads to catharsis and ultimately transcendence of dimensions of hero's personality. The evolution of the hero and his achievement of needlessness against presses were assessed. Conflicts, anxieties and feelings of the hero were appraised towards his attainment of life's meaning. Finally, Attar's universal and humanistic approach to life was further discussed based on his projections towards the story of Sheikh San’aan.

Sexual Occidentation: The Politics of Conversion, Christian-love and Boy-love in ‘Attār

This article explores tales and tropes of conversion, especially conversion engendered by romantic attraction for the religious other, in the poetry of Farīd al-Dīn ‘Attār. The plot dynamics of class, gender and confessional adherence are complex, and hold important clues to the poet's theology. One particularly rich example of the encoding of religious and social boundaries can be found in a body of ghazals written about the beautiful Christian boy (tarsā-bachcha). The history of this homoerotic sub-genre is traced, and ‘Attār's treatment of the theme is explored in juxtaposition not only to earlier authors, but to other motifs of the religious other and of religious conversion, appearing in his own oeuvre, including the narrative of Shaykh San‘ān with its representation of the Christian girl beloved. The terminology of Christianity and the markers by which ‘Attār construes Christian-ness are discussed, and these symbolically amorous encounters with Christianity are analyzed as part of a larger discourse of emasculation which ‘Attār constructs around conversion, religious affiliation, and insufficient commitment to spiritual growth. Analysis of the dynamic interplay of markers of gender and class in the tales and topoi dealing with religious conversion or cross-confessional interaction will ultimately afford a perspective into ‘Attār's conception of the specific religious traditions juxtaposed to Islam, as well as his beliefs about inter-religious relations.

Women Education in India: A Critical Analysis

In India, women education particularly at higher education level needs special attention. In this paper an attempt has been made to critically examine the reality and also to look for solutions. Girls have less access to quality education. Even in the professional courses, the number of girls is less as compared to boys. The girls from backward communities face severe discrimination. Despite reservation quota, they never get opportunity to enter a college, whatever is the course of study. Latest data show that about one in 17 Muslim girls, one in 10 Hindu girls, one in eight Sikh girls and one in six Christian girls, avail higher education. Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe and Other Backward Class girls have poorer access to higher education than higher-caste girls. Less than one in every 20 Scheduled Caste girls accesses higher education, compared with one in every five for girls from the higher castes. The imbalances in the access to higher education among Muslim, SC, ST and OBCs girls also warrant serious concern.

Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village (review)

Reviewed by: Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village Elizabeth Bush Schlitz, Laura Amy Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village; illus. by Robert Byrd. Candlewick, 200786p ISBN 978-0-7636-1578-9$19.99 R* Gr. 6-9 What Schlitz sets out to do is ambitious enough—create a set of readers theater styled monologues (and a couple of pieces for two voices) about medieval occupations, so that every student can have a starring role in a class production. She surpasses that goal with her achievement—a vivid, convincing portrait of medieval adolescence, where teens who will probably never travel beyond the fields outside the walled and gated town have already begun their life's work. Some, like the scion of a knightly family fallen on hard times, are on their way down in the world; others, like beggar Giles, look forward to freedom if they can but survive in town for a year and a day. Several guard personal secrets: beefy, uncomely Taggot will probably never leave her father's anvil, but she dreams about the lord's nephew; pilgrim Constance hopes for a cure at St. Winifred's Well; Barbary, who has seen enough of her stepmother's misery to dread a future that includes marriage and childbirth, covertly flings dung at the lord's privileged daughter and allows the village boys to take the blame. Each player has a distinctive voice, and roles are rendered in free verse, simple prose, or a variety of rhyme schemes. The emotional palette is equally varied, from the rueful comedy of the miller and doctor's sons, who are learning the deceptive tricks of their trades, to the tentative friendship between a Christian girl and Jewish boy who meet at the river, delight momentarily in their common interests, and then [End Page 51] draw away from each other in shame at having nearly denied their respective faiths by crossing a forbidden social line. Schlitz offers performance hints, definitions, and pronunciation tips in sidebars, and longer explanations about such customs as pilgrimage, agriculture, and falconry in additional insets. Although she states the pieces can be read in any order, she has already positioned them to allow several stories to intersect, subtly underscoring the closed nature of village society. Spacious layout and generous font size facilitate readalouds, and the handsome design, embellished with Byrd's medieval-esque illustrations, vignettes, and borders, will draw readers who approach the presentation as a collection of related poems to be enjoyed independently. A bibliography of Schlitz's sources is included. Copyright © 2007 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Situated Moral Agency: Why It Matters?

In her essay, “Identity: Skin, Blood, Heart,” Minnie Bruce Pratt speaks of her struggles to understand racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism. In the process, she examines the moral education she received as a young, white Christian girl growing up in the United States South. Pratt maps her learned ways of seeing (and not seeing) what morality is all about. But she also recounts how, implicit in her moral education, she was

The Gates of November: Chronicles of the Slepak Family (review)

130 SHOFAR Summer 1998 Vol. 16, No.4 When Chazan does tum to the Hebrew sources, he finds Ephraim ben Jacob of Bonn. The latter looks back toward the late twelfth century to illustrate the pain ofexile. He fmds eleven "anti-Jewish incidents" worthy ofnote in what Chazan considers a "rich catalogue." These incidents, however, are garnered from throughout all of Europe, i.e., from York in the north to Vienna in the south, and for the quarter-century between 1171 and 1196. Ofthese incidents, one may be struck by the banality of the case of the Jew who, Ephraim admits, murdered a Christian girl. As a result, the murderer was killed by a mob along with six other Jews whose houses were subsequently robbed. In another case, two Jewish merchants at the Cologne fair are characterized as being "unjustly" accused of passing counterfeit coins. However, they paid a bribe and avoided punishment. If one "incident" in all of Europe every two years or so on average is considered a rich catalogue, what do we make of violence and lawlessness in contemporary American cities? Indeed, if one has to stoop to listing a merchant "unjustly" accused of passing counterfeit coins and the lynching of a murderer with six of his friends, Chazan's argument becomes risible on its face. Finally, the expulsion of the Jews from England and France cannot be explained by the efforts of Church reformers and the influence of popular hatred. Indeed, the proper context for the policies of Edward I and Philip IV is the growing economic recession of the later thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, during which the monarchs continued to mismanage their fiscal affairs. The treatment of the Jews, who, as Chazan correctly argue,s, were led by their banking community, has its analogue in the policy toward the Lombard bankers and the Templar bankers in England and France, respectively. Indeed, anti-Lombard and anti-Templar vituperation may be compared with that levied against the Jews. Of course, neither the Lombards nor the Templars has benefited from a highly literate and exceptionally successful posterity. Thus, like all winners in the long term, some Jews are prone to interpret the history of these episodes in a manner that best fits a self-image terribly skewed by the notion of exile and despite the events of May 1948. Bernard S. Bachrach Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton and University of Minnesota The Gates of November: Chronicles of the Slepak Family, by Chaim Potok. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996. 249 pp. $25.00. Chaim Potok, well-known author offictional works such as The Chosen and My Name is Asher Lev, has written a nonfiction work that may receive similar acclaim. Over the years numerous books by western authors such as William Korey (The Soviet Cage, Book Reviews 131 1971), Leonard Schroeter (The Last Exodus, 1979), Martin Gilbert (The Jews ofHope, 1984, and Shcharansky: Hero of Our Time, 1986), this reviewer (Challenging the Kremlin, 1992), and others have detailed and analyzed the plight and struggle of Soviet Jewish refuseniks. Cognizant ofthese studies as well as the fact that interest in Russian Jewry has dropped offsince the collapse ofthe Soviet Union, Potok determined that his book could still make a valuable contribution by addressing two basic questions: first, under what conditions would individuals tum against a political system and thereby give up position and comfort and bring ruin to their lives; and second, could a single family serve as a microcosm to help us understand what happened to all the peoples of the former Soviet Union. Though the book answers both questions well, the second seems far more enthralling and illuminating. How Vladimir (Volodya) and Masha Slepak gradually became disillusioned with the Soviet system, applied to emigrate to Israel, were denied permission to do so, and suffered terribly as refuseniks-all this is reminiscent of the stories of other highly visible, internationally known refuseniks like Anatoly Shcharansky, Evgeny Lein, Iosif Begun, and Ida NudeI. Major developments in the mid to late 1960s, both inside and outside the Soviet Union, were catalysts that led to their decision to leave the USSR: the arrest in 1965 and trial in 1966 ofSoviet...

Women and Missions: Past and Present, Anthropological and Historical Perceptions

F. Bowie, Introduction: Reclaiming Women's Presence - Part I: Women Missionaries - D. Kirkwood, Protestant Missionary Women: Wives and Spinsters - P. Williams, The 'Missing Link': The Recruitment of Women Missionaries in Some English Evangelical Missionary Societies in the Nineteenth Century - C. Swaisland, Wanted: Earnest, Self-Sacrificing Women for Service in South Africa: Nineteenth-Century Recruitment of Single Women to Protestant Missions - V. Cunningham, 'God and Nature Intended You for a Missionary's Wife': Mary Hill, Jane Eyre and Other Missionary Women in the 1840s - Part II: Mission Impact on Women - A. Hastings, Were Women a Special Case? - M. Lapodi, From Heathen Kraal to Christian Home: Anglican Mission Education and African Christian Girls, 1850-1900 - F. Bowie, The Elusive Christian Family: Missionary Attempts to Define Women's Roles: Case Studies from Cameroon - T. Kanogo, Mission Impact on Women in Colonial Kenya - A. Basu, Mary Ann Cooke to Mother Teresa: Christian Missionary Women and Indian Response - E. Isichei, Does Christianity Empower Women? The Case of the Anaguta of Central Nigeria - S. Lund Skar, Catholic Missionaries and Andean Women: Mismatching Views on Gender and Creation - J. Burke, These Catholic Sisters Are All Mamas! Celibacy and the Metaphor of Maternity

Alex in Wonderland, or "Portnoy's Complaint"

As Alexander Portnoy flies into Israel, free, for the moment at least, of his chronic identity crises, he refers to himself as Alex in Wonderland.' Later when he recites all of this and more from his analyst's couch, he describes that remarkable spell of impotence with Naomi, the Israeli lieutenant. For him there are no dreams; he has life instead. What appear as nightmares to other men are his daily bread. He lives the melodramatic, the disproportionate, the ironic coincidences, and the terrifying ironies. Didn't his mother actually threaten him with a knife; didn't his testicle recede; didn't he break his leg chasing Christian girls; didn't he ejaculate in his own eye the first time he attempted to have a sexual experience with a girl; isn't he impotent in Israel; doesn't he propose to and attempt to seduce and rape a girl a Jewish girl who looks just like his mother? Alex is indeed in Wonderland; his literal world is topsy-turvy. His real world is what other men fantasize, and his fantasies are of marrying and having children, playing softball and eating dinner.

The age of Roman girls at marriage

Abstract For Roman girls the legal minimum age at marriage was 12; but the law provided no sanctions and was contravened. The usual age at puberty (at least for the upper classes) was probably 13+. In fact menarche was not always a pre-condition of marriage; nevertheless marriages were usually consummated immediately. Even if pre-pubertal marriages were regarded by some as deviant, they were not exceptional and were condoned. The usual age of girls at marriage can only be guessed at from the fragmentary literary evidence, but 287 tombstones enable us to tabulate the ages of pagan and Christian girls at marriage. The modal age of the former was 12-15 (43 per cent), for the latter 15-18 (42 per cent). These inscriptions are probably most representative of the urban well-to-do. There is no serious bias towards recording low ages. Men married considerably later than girls and their deaths were recorded by their parents more frequently and until a much later age. This favouritism to boys, the early age at marr...