Medieval Figure Research Articles

Returning the English “Mystics” to their Medieval Milieu: Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe and Bridget of Sweden

The conceptualization of a group of “medieval English mystics” has caused significant controversy in recent decades. A product of scholarly accounts of the Reformation dominated by confessional bias, the concept of a group of uniquely English authors who existed outside of their wider English and continental contexts has been steadily eroded by scholars from a diverse range of fields. This article argues that two of these “English mystics”, Julian of Norwich (c.1342–c.1416) and Margery Kempe (c.1373–after 1438), should be repositioned within a transnational tradition of feminized affective piety, rather than confined to an “English mystical tradition”. Through a comparison of the texts of Julian and Margery with those of one of their most influential continental counterparts, Bridget of Sweden (1303–73), the textual similarities of the three women in their accounts of Christ’s crucifixion and the suffering of Mary are explored. This article concludes by exploring how Julian’s and Margery’s texts were situated within a wider continental tradition of female mystical experience in order to legitimize their contents. Returning these “mystics” to their wider medieval milieu, it is argued here, is the most productive avenue for further research on these medieval figures.

A Neglected Eucharistic Controversy: The Afterlife of John Wyclif's Eucharistic Thought in Bohemia in the Early Fifteenth Century

The renewed interest in John Wyclif (d. 1384) has brought this late medieval figure back into the spotlight of historians, giving rise to numerous studies evaluating his thought and its implications in the context of late fourteenth century England. However, it is not possible fully to appreciate Wyclif's importance in late medieval European culture without understanding the legacy of his ideas on the continent. According to the accepted narrative, John Wyclif's thought was mediated to the continent through the scholarly contacts between the universities in Oxford and in Prague, and re-emerged in the Latin writings of Jan Hus. This article argues that John Wyclif's thought, especially his critique of the church's doctrine of transubstantiation, found a larger audience among the rural clerics and laity in Bohemia, whom it reached through Peter Payne, who simplified and disseminated the works of the Oxford master. Wyclif's critique of transubstantiation sparked a nationwide debate about the nature of the Eucharist, generating numerous treatises, both in Latin and in the vernacular, on the subject of Christ's presence in the sacrament of the mass. This debate anticipated, a full century earlier, the famous debate between Luther and Zwingli and the Eucharistic debates of the sixteenth century Reformation more generally. The proliferation of vernacular Eucharistic tractates in Bohemia shows that Wyclif's critique of transubstantiation could be answered in a number of different ways that included both real presence (however defined) and figurative theologies—a fact, which, in turn, explains the doctrinal diversity among the Lollards in England.

Ekofilozoficzne znaczenie przesłania Hildegardy z Bingen

This article presents the medieval thought of Hildegard of Bingen, which seems to be very topical at this time of ecological crisis. In a prophetic way, this outstanding, European, medieval figure saw the challenges that civilized humankind faces in our time. In her works we find the roots of such popular ideas as a holistic view of the world and sustainable development. According to Hildegard of Bingen, original harmony between God, mankind, and the world is upset by irresponsible human deeds. Hildegard points out that mankind, which is the first victim of its own deeds, is able to recognize a critical situation and take steps to overcome the crisis. Hildegard of Bingen’s work expresses optimism about mankind’s ability to change its attitude towards nature This optimism is derived from the spiritual and intellectual skills of mankind.

The ‘Injunction of Jeremiah’: papal politicking and power in the Middle Ages

Throughout the Middle Ages, the ‘Injunction of Jeremiah’ (Jer. 1:10) was employed by countless ecclesiastical writers. Building on an established tradition, medieval contemporaries began applying the allegory of ‘uprooting and destroying, building and planting’ with an intentionally moral and political message. This article examines the Old Testament call narrative with a view to understanding how and why it served medieval popes and other high-ranked ecclesiastics as a political and rhetorical mechanism for legitimising ecclesiastical authority. It argues for a noticeable and deliberate shift in textual interpretation in the ninth century, after which period medieval popes and influential church figures alike marshalled the Injunction to help strengthen the centralising ideology of Rome and her bishop. The effect, it is concluded, contributed ultimately to reinforcing the papacy's claims to govern spiritual and temporal matters throughout Christian society.

The Trauma ofThe Making of Americans:

The self-absorption with which Gertrude Stein read literature and philosophy was reflected in the autobiographical interests of her literary production.1 The scope of this production has inspired some psychoanalytic approaches to analyzing her work, such as research by Merill Cole and Priscilla Wald; while Cole focuses on a more semiotic analysis through the Oedipal signifier of the Name of the Father in Stein’s work, Wald explores her literature through the historical context of Stein’s autobiography as a lesbian and second generation American immigrant.2 In this article, I am interested in reading Stein’s work psychoanalytically, but with a particular consideration of the relation between her language practice and her Jewishness.3 Inspired as Stein was by visual artists in her Paris community, her experiments in representing people repeating themselves “insistently,” led her to devise a unique history of American migration in The Making of Americans: Being a History of a Family’s Progress (TMA) (1925).4 Evident in Stein’s stylistic signature of repetition in her portrait making are repetitive motifs in her works based on her life, which Wald brings to light in her analysis.5 One motif in particular is emphasized in Barbara Will’s paper on Stein and Zionism in which she observes that the race-centered focus in Stein’s “more explicitly Jewish autobiographical novel Q.E.D. (1903)” is repeated in the representation in Melanctha.6 While this race-thinking may explain an avoidance Maria Damon sees in Stein scholarship, my attention is drawn to the fact that the recurring racial narratives would

Theories of Cognition in the Later Middle Ages, by Robert Pasnau.

In his dense, rich, and sophisticated book, Robert Pasnau presents, interprets, and discusses in a systematic way central aspects of the debate about theories of cognition between 1250 and 1350. The focus is primarily on pre-propositional items which are required for composing propositions: items that represent features of the world or essences of things. These items are called by the technical word ‘species’. The main questions of the book are whether a theory of cognition that assumes species can still be a version of direct realism, whether such a theory fosters scepticism, and whether the assumption of species is required at all in a theory of cognition. Thomas Aquinas is taken as the representative of a species-theorist of cognition, Peter John Olivi and William Ockham as its challengers. Some other medieval figures turn up as well, for example, Roger Bacon, Henry of Ghent, Peter Aureol, and William Crathorn. The book is divided into an introduction, a first part, headed ‘Fundamentals’, a second and principal part, headed ‘Representations and Realism’, a conclusion, and two appendices: one on Aquinas’ thesis about the identity of cognizer and cognized object, the other one on Henry of Ghent’s view of intelligible species.

Poverty, Heresy, and the Apocalypse: The Order of the Apostles and Social Change in Medieval Italy, 1260–1307 by Jerry B. Pierce (review)

Reviewed by: Poverty, Heresy, and the Apocalypse: The Order of the Apostles and Social Change in Medieval Italy, 1260–1307 by Jerry B. Pierce David Burr Poverty, Heresy, and the Apocalypse: The Order of the Apostles and Social Change in Medieval Italy, 1260–1307. By Jerry B. Pierce. (New York: Continuum. 2012. Pp. xiv, 197. $120.00. ISBN 978-1-4411-5641-9.) Few medieval figures capture the imagination like Fra Dolcino, who assumed leadership of the unsanctioned order of the Apostles in 1300 after its founder, Gerardo Segarelli, was burned. Seven years later, many of the Apostles were slaughtered by a crusading army, and Dolcino himself was executed. Good work on Dolcino has been done by contemporary Italian scholars, but hitherto little has been written in English. Pierce begins with an instructive historiographical overview of modern scholarship on the Apostles, with particular attention to (1) the repeated interpretation of Dolcino in political, revolutionary terms over the decades and (2) the American and English tendency to rely uncritically on prejudiced sources like Salimbene and Bernard Gui. Italian scholars like Raniero Orioli and Corrado Mornese, Pierce says, “have made significant contributions,” but “their efforts have been almost entirely overlooked by English-speaking historians” (p. 16). That charge is partly correct but ignores the extent to which Orioli’s work has now penetrated American scholarship so thoroughly that the current Wikipedia article on Dolcino relies heavily on him. Italian scholarship on Dolcino is hardly unanimous. Pierce accepts Corrado Mornese’s argument (contra Orioli) that, in Dolcino’s battle with the crusade, peasants of the Valsesia area supported him. Mornese’s argument is fascinating but—like everything else involving Dolcino—debatable, and it would have been helpful if Pierce had explicitly examined it, since (as his bibliography shows) he is quite familiar with the Mornese/Buratti/Burat circle and their preoccupations. Also desirable would have been his evaluation of Orioli’s thoughts on a possible connection between Dolcino and the Visconti. And, since he relies heavily on Gui’s De secta pseudo-apostolorum and the anonymous Historia fratris Dulcini, a discussion of their provenance would have been of assistance of the reader. Is Gui really the author of the De secta? And whose interests is “anonymous” defending? Dolcino’s apocalyptic program is important, as Pierce realizes. He compares Dolcino with Joachim of Fiore. This is standard, but recent work on [End Page 125] apocalyptic thought in the century after Joachim has made it less promising to engage in point-by-point comparisons of Dolcino and Joachim as if there were nothing in between. So far only Gian Luca Potestà (yet another Italian) has begun to place Dolcino in his contemporary apocayptic/prophetic context. If Pierce’s book can be said to have a major problem, it is that he gives himself too little space to do much of anything. He offers fifty-two pages of background covering social, economic, political, and ecclesiastical history from c. 1000 to the mid-thirteenth century, then finally turns to the Apostles but devotes only sixty-eight pages to them. What he cannot offer in those sixty-eight pages is what Orioli actually offers in the 325 pages of Venit perfidus heresiarcha—a subtle inquiry into who Dolcino was and what he stood for, one based on a close examination of all extant sources. Most of these sources are contestable, but when combined they point to some interesting hypotheses. And in the final analysis, hypotheses are the best we can do at present. Looming over any study of Dolcino is the disquieting fact that, of the sources available to us, almost nothing can be taken at face value. Both the brevity of this book and its title now leave Pierce free to write what he is clearly capable of producing: a book specifically on Dolcino that combines the complexity and scholarly acumen of Orioli with the more recent insights of Mornese, Potestà, and other authors. David Burr Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg (Emeritus) Copyright © 2012 The Catholic University of America Press

A reconsideration of the authorship and transmission of <i>Cogadh Gáedhel re Gallaibh</i>

The eleventh-/twelfth-century encomiastic biography of Brian Boroma (ob. 1014), Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh ('The War of the Irish with the Foreigners'), was the most important text in cementing Brian's reputation as the medieval Irish king par excellence. Scholarly consensus considers it to have been written as a work of propaganda in favour of Brian's great-grandson, Muirchertach Ua Briain {ob. 1119), whose father, Tairdelbach, had earlier wrested the kingship of Dal Cais from his uncle, Donnchad (son of Brian). In this article it will be shown that, contrary to previous scholarly opinion, the text actually portrays Donnchad in a positive light. It will be argued that there may have been multiple versions of the text in existence but that the only surviving complete copy was written or reworked in favour of Donnchad's descendants (and not for Muirchertach) and it is this version which has influenced subsequent accounts of Brian's story, right into the modern period. Introduction With the possible exception of St Patrick, no single medieval figure has remained within Irish consciousness to the same degree as the eleventh-century king of Ireland Brian Boroma (Brian Boru) (see Figures 1 and 3). He owes this position to his supposed leadership of a 'national' struggle against the Vikings, * Author's e-mail: denis.casey@helsinki.fi doi: 10.33 18/PRIAC.201 3. 113.03 1 This article would not have been possible without the help and generosity of Dr Maire Ni Mhaonaigh, who read earlier drafts and discussed Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh with me at length. Thank you to the following who also read and commented on earlier drafts of this article: Dr Elizabeth Boyle, Professor Sean Duffy, Dr Deborah Hayden, Dr Meidhbhin Ni Urdail and the editors and anonymous peer-reviewers of these Proceedings. I am also grateful to Lenore Fischer for bringing work on the Book of Howth to my attention and to attendees of the 2010 Tionol (where an earlier version of this article was presented). Needless to say, none of the above are responsible for any errors or omissions in this article. I would also like to express my gratitude for support I have received from the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, University of Cambridge; funding from the Society for Renaissance Studies and a visiting fellowship at An Foras Feasa, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, which afforded me the opportunity to complete this article. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy Vol. 113C, 139-161 © 2013 Royal Irish Academy This content downloaded from 157.55.39.220 on Fri, 02 Sep 2016 04:27:11 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

A Medieval Metaphor to Aid Use of the Neuman Systems Model in Simulation Debriefing

Patient simulation is an effective clinical nursing experience and debriefing is recognized as the most crucial phase for students to internalize learning. The Neuman systems model is an excellent organizing framework for simulation debriefing to maximize learning. However, due to the model's complexity, metaphor may be useful to help students to link simulation events with the model's concepts. A medieval metaphorical adaptation of the Neuman systems model was created as an educational debriefing tool to help students bridge this gap. Neuman's concepts are represented as medieval figures encountering and dealing with stressor dragons, with assistance (nursing intervention) as necessary. The companion questionnaire allows recording of student insights and becomes an evaluation tool for student comprehension.

A Statue of Henry III from Westminster Abbey

AbstractIt is generally assumed that no medieval figure sculpture has survived from the north front of the nave of Westminster Abbey after three and a half centuries of successive restorations. This assumption was challenged by the appearance at auction in 2007 of a life-sized statue of Henry iii bearing some of the stylistic hallmarks of the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The statue, according to its vendor, was acquired from the masons’ yard at Westminster Abbey in 1980, during the most recent major restoration of the north front carried out by Peter Foster, Surveyor of the Fabric until 1988. It was removed from the site with the consent of the contractors. Until the auction, it had been chained to a wall in the vendor's garden. The art dealer who bought the figure identified it as Henry iii from its close resemblance to the thirteenth-century tomb effigy of the king in Westminster Abbey. He purchased the statue in anticipation of it proving to be of a similar date. The purpose of this paper is to review the documented history of the figure sculpture on the north front of the abbey's nave and find a place for this statue within it.

The Point of the Plow: Conceptual Integration in the Allegory of Langland and Voltaire

Allegory as a genre dominated the literary and cultural landscape through the Middle Ages, with William Langland's Piers Ploughman at the apogee, and declined with the rise of modernity, with the Romantics declaring it moribund by the early 19th C. What replaced it, they claimed, was Symbol, not a genre, but a new literary aesthetic. Allegory was inert and limited. Symbol was active and expansive. Scholars as diverse as Walter Benjamin, Michel Foucault, and Maureen Quilligan, have attributed this aesthetic shift to modernist secularization, to the loss of a spiritually infused picture of the material world. We contend that while the prototypical, historical genre has indeed faded, the cognitive affinities which the genre satisfied so directly continue to thrive; that the modernist aesthetic also appeals to these affinities; and that allegory is consonant with modernism. We build this argument through analyses of Piers and Voltaire's Candide, through the intersection of the Medieval figure, enigma, and Conceptual Blending Theory.

Epistemic Networks and the Diffusion of Legal Institutions: The Case of Criminal Private Prosecution in Latin America

How do legal institutions travel across countries? I address this question by tracing the evolution of the right to private prosecution in the criminal procedure codes in three Latin American countries. Contrary to a popular perception that Latin America is only mimicking accusatory systems by introducing oral trials and improving the rights of the accused in their penal processes, a closer look at the reforms made to criminal procedure codes reveals that these countries are also strengthening the rights of victims, by either introducing or empowering a medieval figure that is not well known within common law systems, i.e., the institution of criminal private prosecution. Through this procedural right, victims of crime have the right to initiate and participate in the penal proceedings, and even to participate in the investigations and trial. In this paper I show preliminary evidence from a comparative study on Chile, Guatemala, and Mexico, on the role of an epistemic network in diffusing this legal institution.

Medieval Biography

The nature of the surviving evidence subjects biographers of medieval figures to certain difficulties. As a case in point, my biography of Edward I was more a history of the reign than a study of the king alone, though documents provided clues about his character. Although a number of biographical studies have led to significant advances in understanding the history of medieval England during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the lives of kings and queens, as well as nobles and bishops, dominate the field simply because information about the lives of people in less grandiose positions is severely limited. There is a market for popular books about medieval figures, but these biographies do little more than tell a good story.

Moses Maimonides: The Man and His Works. Herbert A. Davidson

Previous articleNext article No AccessReviewsMoses Maimonides: The Man and His Works. Herbert A. Davidson Michael FagenblatMichael Fagenblat Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Speculum Volume 81, Number 3Jul., 2006 The journal of the Medieval Academy of America Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1017/S0038713400015931 Views: 8Total views on this site Copyright 2006 The Medieval Academy of AmericaPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

John Greenfield 'Parzival' with 'Titurel' and the Love Lyrics by Wolfram von Eschenbach , Cyril Edwards (review)

MLRy 100.3, 2005 857 and Geneva: Droz), 1978-82)) are helpfully provided in the margin of the German text, but the reader is not so well served in his wish to correlate this edition with Kluge's, forthese references are not given in the other margin, as they could so easily have been, but are buried as page-references in the body of the text, where they do not stand out clearly enough, but have to be laboriously hunted down. At the beginning of 2004 the Deutsche Klassiker Verlag announced that Volume v of this edition (Die Suche nach dem Gral. Der Tod des Konigs Artus) would appear by the end ofthe year. However, we have since been informed of Steinhoff' ssudden death in April 2004. The publishers say that the commentary to this concluding volume was well advanced, but that there will inevitably be some delay before it comes out. When it eventually does, it will be a fittingmemorial to Steinhoff's contribution to our discipline. Trinity College, Cambridge D. H. Green Wahrnehmung im Parzival Wolframsvon Eschenbach: Actas do Coloquio Internacional 15 e 16 de novembrode 2002. Ed. by John Greenfield. (Revista da Faculdade de Letras do Porto Linguas e Literaturas, Anexo xiii) Porto: Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto. 2004. 278 pp. ?10. ISBN 972-9350-57-4. 'Parzival'with 'Titurel'and theLove Lyrics. By Wolfram von Eschenbach. Trans. by Cyril Edwards. (Arthurian Studies, 56) Cambridge: Brewer. 2004. xxxiv + 329 pp. ?50; $85. ISBN 1-84384-005-7. In the introduction to his collection of essays John Greenfield points to the cur? rent interest in the phenomenon of perception, which in the field of Altgermanistik was especially stimulated by the appearance of Joachim Bumke's Die Blutstropfen imSchnee: Uber Wahrnehmungund Erkenntnisim 'Parzival'Wolframs von Eschenbach (Tiibingen: Niemeyer, 2001). Reviews of Bumke' s work drew attention to the subtlety of this issue and to the question whether it was legitimate to view medieval figures as lifelike 'characters' or, as Greenfield puts it in representing Walter Haug's con? tribution, 'ob es grundsatzlich moglich ist, die Romanfiguren (bei Hartmann sowie bei Wolfram) nach subjektiv-erkenntnistheoretischen, "psychologischen" Griinden fiir ihr Tun zu hinterfragen' (p. 9). Haug's own contribution takes the circumspect path of pointing to how a medieval narrator may, despite the 'given' nature of much of his material, create a new sense: 'durch Brechung und Kombination von Rastern Ablaufe neu (zu) gestalten' ('Warum versteht Parzival nicht, was er hort und sieht? Erzahlen zwischen Handlungsschematik und Figurenperspektive bei Hartmann und Wolfram', pp. 37-65 (p. 37)). Haug explores 'was zwischen Subjektivitatund Schema ausgespielt wird' in Parzival and shows how Wolfram exploits Parzival's very lack of perception (or insight) to underline the theme of 'das aporetische Verhaltnis von menschlichem Wollen und gottlicher Gnade' (p. 64). The contributions by Timothy McFarland, Elisabeth Lienert, Michael Shields, and Stephan Fuchs-Jolie apply themselves to the elusive entityof love and representations of its perception both in Parzival and in Wolfram's lyric poetry,where, with reference to ' Den morgenblic bi wahtaeres sange erkos', Shields finddistinctively masculine and feminine perceptions in the erotic sphere. Sebastian Coxon and Timothy McFarland devote themselves to the little-studied ' Joflanze' action, Coxon to the issue of public perception and McFarland to political and gender relations; while essays by Ingrid Kasten, Helmut Brall-Tuchel, Martin Baisch, ElisabethSchmid, and Stephan FuchsJolie provide further,substantial contributions to what is shaping up as a vigorous biennial series (a volume on the Nibelungenlied with the published papers of the 2000 Porto conference appeared under the same imprint in 2002). The volume is to be 858 Reviews warmly recommended to those with a serious interest in the work of Wolfram von Eschenbach, since, quite apart from its contributions to the specific issue addressed in the title, the contributors provide close readings of diverse parts of the narrative text which are invariably relevant to an understanding of Parzival and of Wolfram's oeuvre as a whole. Cyril Edwards's translation of Parzival appears less than a quarter of a century after that of A. T. Hatto in the Penguin Classics series (1980). In view of the classic status accorded Hatto's version both in...

Moses Maimonides: the man and his works

Moses Maimonides, rabbinist, philosopher, and physician, had a greater impact on Jewish history than any other medieval figure. Born in Cordova, Spain, in 1137 or 1138, he spent a few years in Morocco, visited Palestine, and settled in Egypt by 1167. He died there in 1204. Maimonides was a man of superlatives. He wrote the first commentary to cover the entire Mishna corpus; composed what quickly became the dominant work on the 613 commandments believed to have been given by God to Moses; produced the most comprehensive and most intensely studied code of rabbinic law to emerge from the Middle Ages; and his Guide for the Perplexed has had a greater influence on Jewish thought than any other Jewish philosophic work. During the last decades of his life, he conducted an active medical practice, which extended into the royal court-the Sultan Saladin is reported to have been his patient-and composed some ten or eleven works on medicine. This book offers a fresh look at every aspect of Maimonides' life and works: the course of his life, his education, his personality, and his rabbinic, philosophical, and medical writings. At a number of junctures, Davidson points out that information about Maimonides which has been accepted for decades or centuries as common knowledge is in actuality supported by no credible evidence and often, more disconcertingly, is patently incorrect. Maimonides' diverse writings are frequently viewed as expressions of several distinct personas, uncomfortably and awkwardly bundled into a single human frame; the present book treats his writings as expressions of a single, integrated, albeit complex, mind.

Mapping Plus Ultra: Cartography, Space, and Hispanic Modernity

THE HISTORY OF CARTOGRAPHY in the early modern period has been tied in particular ways to the emergence of both imperialism and modernity. At the center of this argument lie the gridded scale maps that Europeans learned to make in the wake of their rediscovery of Ptolemy's Geography. These new maps supported the emergence of abstract space as a centerpiece of a new spatiality - a spatiality that in turn supported, in both theory and practice, the reterritorialization of the extra-European world for European ends. My paper interrogates this argument by examining Spanish attempts to map the Americas during the years 1492 to 1580. It identifies a cartographic culture steeped in late medieval figures of space, one that suggests continuity rather than rupture between the Middle Ages and the origins of European imperialism. Many Spanish mapmakers were engaged with some of the most sophisticated problems posed by the new, Ptolemaic cartography.These specialists, however, represented only a small minority of Spanish mapmakers. Although the abstract spatiality that informed their practice proved to be the emerging cultural trend, this spatiality was not hegemonic in early modern Spanish culture as a whole. Both philological and cartographic evidence drawn from outside the circle of specialists suggests that an alternative spatiality was also at play, one that was rooted in the itineraries of travel rather than the planar extensions of geometry.This linear spatiality had its roots in late medieval travel narrative and so-called way-finding maps. It is this spatiality that is most common in Spanish attempts to figure the wider world. This argument should not be understood as an essay in Hispanic particularity. Spain functions as a test-case here, and no claim is made that its linear spatiality is unique to Hispanic culture. What may be unique to Spain is the persistence of this spatiality beyond the year 1580, when the cartographic revolution took root much more deeply in northern than in southern Europe. Nonetheless, its near-ubiquity in the first ninety years of Spanish Americana suggests that the association we have made among abstract spatiality, modernity, and imperialism has been misplaced. Although it may be genuine, it must be understood as an attempt to rationalize empire after the fact, not as a cultural prop of an original imperial impulse.

For fear of the fire: Joan of Arc and the limits of subjectivity

Why are contemporary secular theorists so frequently drawn to saints, martyrs, and questions of religion? Why has Joan of Arc fascinated some of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century? In a book that faces crucial issues in both critical and feminist inquiry, Francoise Meltzer uses the story of Joan as a guide for reading the postmodern nostalgia for a body that is intact and transparent. She argues that critics who place excessive emphasis on opposition and difference remain blind to their nostalgia for the pre-Cartesian idea that the body and mind are the same. Engaging a number of theorists, and alternating between Joan's historical and cultural context, Meltzer also explores the ways in which postmodern thinkers question subjectivity. She argues that the way masculine subjects imagine Joan betrays their fear of death and necessitates the role of women as cultural others: enigmatic, mysterious, dark, and impossible. As such, Joan serves as a useful model of the limits and risks of subjectivity. For Meltzer, she is both the first modern and the last medieval figure. From the ecclesial jury that burned her, to the theorists of today who deny their attraction to the supernatural, the philosophical assumptions that inform Joan's story, as Meltzer ultimately shows, have changed very little.

The Speed of Fright: Temporal Dramas in Dante's Inferno

AbstractThis article is in two parts. It opens with a synoptic view of how Dante-poet connects the particular purview of his fictive character (whom critics typically name 'Dante-pilgrim') with a worldview - a philosophical theology, a cosmology and an ethics - shared fairly commonly among Christian intellectuals in the late Middle Ages. This worldview includes certain general assumptions about the nature of time and some detailed ideas about how a human person, an individual psyche, is contextualized by time. Included are some reflections on the medieval figure of the cosmos as God's "book" and of divine creativity and providence as a 'narrative' art. Dante, particularly in the Paradiso, is perhaps the greatest elaborator of that figure. The article's second part is a detailed textual analysis of the episode of the barrators (those who illicitly offer or receive political favors) in Inferno XXII-XXIII. A psychology of uncertainty and terror is dramatized poetically in these cantos in terms of the differences (and some likenesses) between one trapped sinner's experience of time and the pilgrim's participation in it. Virgil's guidance, fidelity and extraordinary discernment are also figured by Dante in temporal terms.

Music

In an Encyclopedia Devoted to Matters Pertaining to Persia and The greater Iranian cultural sphere, musical items cannot be too numerous or diverse. Musical topics fall under four categories: 1) the theory and history of traditional art music; 2) folk music of different regions; 3) musical instruments; and 4) individual musicians and their work, past and present, worthy of mention. Of these, art music provides the most extensive area for representation. The folk music of Persia, with patchy exceptions, has not been adequately studied; unfortunately satisfactory encyclopedia entries cannot be constructed in more than a few areas. The country is very rich in diverse musical instruments, but many are folk instruments about which, again, comparatively little scholarly work has been done. As to individual musicians, there are those medieval figures, mostly claimed by the Arabs and Turks as well, whom we know mainly through their extant writings on the theory of music. Only contemporary figures can be properly identified, both biographically and as to their artistic merits. They are mainly performers of the urban musical tradition.