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Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage - Hardcover

Dr. Jane Hwang Degenhardt

 
9780748640843: Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0748640843 ISBN 13: 9780748640843
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press, 2010

Synopsis

This book explores the spectre of Christian conversion to Islam in twelve early modern English plays. In works by Shakespeare, Marlowe, Massinger, and others, conversion from Christianity to Islam is represented as both tragic and erotic - a fate worse than death as well as a sexual seduction. Degenhardt examines the stage's treatment of this intercourse of faiths to reveal connections between sexuality, race, and confessional identity in early modern English drama and culture. In addition, she shows how England's encounter with Islam reanimated post-Reformation debates about the embodiment of Christian faith. As Degenhardt compellingly demonstrates, the erotics of conversion added fuel to the fires of controversies over Pauline universalism, Christian martyrdom, the efficacy of relics and rituals, and the ideals of the Knights of Malta.

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About the Author

Jane Hwang Degenhardt is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is the co-editor (with Elizabeth Williamson) of Religion and Drama in Early Modern England.

From the Back Cover

Degenhardt anatomizes English anxieties and defenses with consummate skill…Her analysis of the ‘‘imaginative process whereby religious identities became fused with national, embodied, and proto-racial categories’’ is brilliant.--Reviewed by Richmond Barbour in Renaissance QuarterlyDegenhardt’s book provides a richly evocative and nuanced way of looking at emergent racial categories, apostasy, and the human body….It brilliantly achieves its primary objective of establishing the continued influence of Catholicism in post-Reformation staging of an embodied Christian response to Islam. The impressive list of plays examined and carefully articulated arguments make it a remarkable piece of scholarship, yet it also manages to remain accessible to a general audience interested in learning more about Anglo-Islamic relations in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.--Reviewed by Amrita Sen in Shakespeare QuarterlyIslamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern StageJane Hwang DegenhardtThis critical monograph explores the spectre of Christian conversion to Islam in early modern British drama, linking canonical works by Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Webster with less canonical plays by Massinger, Dekker, and others.Situating British theatre in a global context, it looks at how East-West power dynamics informed representations of identity, embodiment, and race. In particular, this study examines the stage's treatment of religious conversion as a sexual seduction, showing how gender was a key variable in exposing interconnections between conversion to Islam and racial reinscription. It also focuses on how confessional identities fused into racial categories, to offer a unique approach to discussions of race in the early modern period.In addition, this study is concerned with how the threat of Christian conversion to Islam was framed within a domestic culture of Protestant reform. It looks at how the Renaissance stage re-empowered surprisingly Catholic models of Christian resistance to Islam and demonstrates how the stage refigured medieval models from saints tales, martyrologies, and romances to address Renaissance concerns about commerce, global politics, and interfaith contact. In effect, this book maps a conjunction between post-Reformation controversies over the embodied nature of Christian faith and the early modern history of race.Jane Hwang Degenhardt is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is the co-editor (with Elizabeth Williamson) of Religion and Drama in Early Modern England.

From the Inside Flap

Degenhardt anatomizes English anxieties and defenses with consummate skill Her analysis of the imaginative process whereby religious identities became fused with national, embodied, and proto-racial categories is brilliant.--Reviewed by Richmond Barbour in Renaissance QuarterlyDegenhardt s book provides a richly evocative and nuanced way of looking at emergent racial categories, apostasy, and the human body .It brilliantly achieves its primary objective of establishing the continued influence of Catholicism in post-Reformation staging of an embodied Christian response to Islam. The impressive list of plays examined and carefully articulated arguments make it a remarkable piece of scholarship, yet it also manages to remain accessible to a general audience interested in learning more about Anglo-Islamic relations in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.--Reviewed by Amrita Sen in Shakespeare QuarterlyIslamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern StageJane Hwang DegenhardtThis critical monograph explores the spectre of Christian conversion to Islam in early modern British drama, linking canonical works by Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Webster with less canonical plays by Massinger, Dekker, and others.Situating British theatre in a global context, it looks at how East-West power dynamics informed representations of identity, embodiment, and race. In particular, this study examines the stage's treatment of religious conversion as a sexual seduction, showing how gender was a key variable in exposing interconnections between conversion to Islam and racial reinscription. It also focuses on how confessional identities fused into racial categories, to offer a unique approach to discussions of race in the early modern period.In addition, this study is concerned with how the threat of Christian conversion to Islam was framed within a domestic culture of Protestant reform. It looks at how the Renaissance stage re-empowered surprisingly Catholic models of Christian resistance to Islam and demonstrates how the stage refigured medieval models from saints tales, martyrologies, and romances to address Renaissance concerns about commerce, global politics, and interfaith contact. In effect, this book maps a conjunction between post-Reformation controversies over the embodied nature of Christian faith and the early modern history of race.Jane Hwang Degenhardt is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is the co-editor (with Elizabeth Williamson) of Religion and Drama in Early Modern England.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

Publisher
Edinburgh University Press
Publication date
2010
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0748640843
ISBN 13 
9780748640843
Binding
Hardcover
Number of pages
288