Female Mystics Research Articles

The Seventy-seventh Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association

MISCELLANY THE SEVENTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION Report of the Committee on Program Ralph William Franklin of General Theological Seminary and Mary Elizabeth Brown of Marymount Manhattan College made up the Committee on Program for the 1997 meeting chaired by Jo Ann Kay McNamara. The committee sent out calls for papers through the Association's journal and on the Internet via various discussion lists used by the respective members. In addition, we each pursued personal contacts and enjoyed the very energetic assistance ofWilliam Callahan, the President of the Association. In our calls for papers, we explicitly encouraged the submission of single paper proposals as well as completed panels on the principle that many members are not sufficiently well integrated into scholarly networks to enter into a complete panel without our assistance. This procedure also gave us the opportunity to fashion panels at our own initiative that otherwise might not have emerged. Three panels were created in this manner with the committee supplying chairs and commentators. We were able to put together a program of nine panels ranging broadly in interest from female mystics in the Middle Ages to New York archbishops. Presenters came from every area of the United States, Canada, and Israel. A particular high point was a panel in honor of the life and work of Louis Pascoe, SJ., a long-time member and officer of the Association. All the sessions were held in the New York Hilton Hotel. There were a few minor changes in some of the panels, but all went off smoothly. January 3, morning: "Moving the Boundaries: Studying Religious Women in the Cultures of Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe." Chairman: Michael Goodich,University ofHaifa. F.Thomas Luongo,University ofNotre Dame:"FamUy Conflicts and Political Networks; Catherine of Siena and Her Disciples in the War of the Eight Saints" (Since Dr. Luongo was ill, his paper was read by Carol Lansing.); Elizabeth A. Lehfeldt, Cleveland State University:"A Place in the Temporal World: The Response of Convents to Lay and Ecclesiastical Challenges in Sixteenth-Century Spain"; Katherine L. French, State University of New York— New Paltz:"Where, oh Where, Have the LayWomen Gone? Gendering Parochial Involvement in Late Medieval England." Commentator: Carol L. Lansing, Univer258 MISCELLANY259 sity of California at Santa Barbara. The panel attracted more than fifty people, some standing in the doorway throughout the session. January 3, afternoon: "Medieval Reform and Renewal: Papers in Honor of Louis B. Pascoe, SJ." Chairman: Lawrence F. Hundersmarck, Pace University. Christopher M. Bellitto, St. Joseph's Seminary, Dunwoodie,Yonkers, New York: "Nicholas de Clamange: Reformatio Personalis as the Foundation of Church Reform during the Great Schism"; Elizabeth Lowe, Fordham University: "Hervaeus Natalis: Evangelical Models and the Reform of the Dominican Order"; Thomas Giangreco,Iona College:"Cola di Rienzo and the Renewal of the City of Rome: Art, Politics, and the Revolution of 1347." Commentator: Thomas M. Izbicki,Johns Hopkins University. The session was enhanced by a brief speech of appreciation by Father Pascoe. About thirty-five persons attended. January 3, afternoon: "In That 'Umble House': The 1894-1896 Holy Family Sisters Journal of Sister Bernard Deggs." Chairman: Mary Grace Krieger, Maryknoll Mission Archives. Charles E. Nolan, Archives of the Archdiocese of New Orleans and Notre Dame Seminary:"Introduction to the Deggs Journal and the Louisiana CathoUc History Perspective";Virginia Meacham Gould, De KaIb College : "The Southern Women's Studies Perspective"; Cyprian Davis, O.S.B., St. Meinrad Seminary CoUege: "Portrait of a Foundress: Henriette DeLiIIe"; Sylvia Thibodaux, Holy FamUy Sisters: "The Holy FamUy Sisters' Perspective." This session attracted about twenty-five people to a very close and detailed subject. January 4, morning:"Female Voices in Late-Medieval and Early-Modern Italian Religious Literature." Chairman:Anne Jacobson Schutte, University ofVirginia. Karen Scott, DePaul University: "Imagery of Conversion and Political Action: Catherine of Siena in Early Modern Italian Religious Writing";WUliamV Hudon, Bloomsburg University:"TheVoice ofCamilla Battista daVarano in Early-Modern Italian Devotional Literature"; Armando Maggi, University of Pennsylvania:"Stories and Histories in the Visions of Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi." Commentator: Anne Jacobson Schutte. This session, unfortunately, had to compete with two sessions of the American Historical Association on comparable topics (one devoted...

The Annihilation of Marguerite Porete

"The Annihilation of Marguerite Porete." On 1 June 1310, Marguerite Porete was publicly burned as a heretic in Paris for the repeated circulation of her book, the Mirouer des simples ames anienties. Since the rediscovery and publication of this book by Romana Guarnieri as part of her study of the heresy of the Free Spirit in the later medieval period, most scholarly treatment of the Mirouer has been concerned with its place in the transmission of heterodoxy. More recent, particularly feminist, readings have emphasized social rather than doctrinal issues, but have grounded themselves in a conception of the role that the Mirouer played in late medieval religious literature that was skewed by the arguments and assumptions of earlier work. The present article reviews these questions, but it is primarily intended as an exploration of the heterodoxy of Marguerite Porete through the hermeneutics of gender: it attempts to read the idea of the "annihilation" of the lover of God in terms of feminist psychology of self-identity. Drawing upon observations of female mystics by Simone de Beauvoir and Luce Irigaray, and of relation and dependence by Nancy Chodorow and Jessica Benjamin, it explores the unacceptability of the fundamental ideas of the Mirouer des simples ames in terms of the definition of masculine and feminine subjectivity in Western culture.

Pseudo-Dionysius as Liberator: The Influence of the Negative Tradition on Late Medieval Female Mystics

La tradition negative est le produit de plusieurs siecles d'experience pratique de la contemplation et la plupart du temps par des femmes. Cette via negativa est etablie par le Pseudo-Denys et repose dans le Magisterium ou les enseignements de l'Eglise bases sur les ecrits des Peres ou des docteurs. Cette via negativa a exerce une influence tres importante sur les mystiques feminines du Moyen Age. Ceci a conduit ces mystiques vers un degre de pouvoir et d'influence qu'elles n'avaient jamais connu auparavant

A Plea for the Study of the Minor Female Mystics in Late Medieval Germany

A Plea for the Study of the Minor Female Mystics in Late Medieval Germany

Female Mysticism in the Middle Ages

Female Mysticism in the Middle Ages