Performance and Transformation: New Approaches to Late Medieval Spirituality

edited by Mary A. Suydam and Joanna E. Ziegler

ISBN 10: 031221281X / ISBN 13: 9780312212810

Published by Houndmills, Basingstoke : Macmillan, 1999

About this Item

xxi, 361 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm. This is a volume of essays that pushes the frontiers of interpretation on mystical and ecstatic writings of the later Middle Ages to explore them as particular performances. The contributors examine mysticism and spirituality from multiple performance perspectives. CONTENTS: Introduction: Word and Deed: A Three-Dimensional Approach to Medieval Ecstatic Texts - PART I: SPEAKING - Preaching and Prophesying: The Public Proclamation of Birgitta of Sweden's Revelations; C.L.Sahlin - Margery Kempe on Tour: A Performance Artist and Her Performance Text; N.Hopenwasser - The Exorcist as Performed and Informing: The Two Selves of Thomas of Cantimpre; R. Sweetman - PART TWO: PERFORMING - Sacred Performances: Beguine Textuality; M.Suydam - Annihilating the Annihilated Soul: Dialogues and Power in the English Translation of Marguerite Porete's Mirror; L.Finke - Ritual and Performance in Richard Rolle's Passion Meditation; B.W.Hodapp - PART THREE: DOING - Mysticism as Priesthood: Gertrude of Helfta Offers the Eucharist; L.Grimes - Mechthild of Hackeborn and Marian Devotional Liturgies; A.M.Caron - Christ-Child Effigies and Cradles: Evidence for the Performative Practices of Mother Mysticism; R.Hale - Elizabeth of Spalbeek's Trance Performance of Faith; J.Ziegler and S.Rodgers - Index.

Seller Inventory # 11jbew308

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Performance and Transformation: New Approaches to Late Medieval Spirituality
• Publisher: Houndmills, Basingstoke : Macmillan
• Publication Date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 031221281X
• ISBN 13: 9780312212810
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Christianity
  • European History

About this title

Synopsis

Performance and Transformation is a volume of essays that pushes the frontiers of interpretation on mystical and ecstatic writings of the later Middle Ages to explore them as particular performances. The noteworthy contributors examine mysticism and spirituality from multiple performance perspectives: dramatic, kinesthetic, linguistic, and spatial. Emerging from recent work on ritual, performance, mysticism, and the body, the authors offer new ways of analyzing these performances and their construction through questioning the various modes through which they were conveyed. Performance perspectives reveal women’s public leadership roles within their communities, the nature of devotional reading and authoring in manuscript cultures, and women’s roles in developing and performing rituals and texts that would transform future generations. The emphasis on the agency of women in conveying and constructing ritual makes this work a rare find among studies of its kind.

About the Author

Mary Suydam teaches medieval religion and history at Kenyon College. She is the author of numerous articles on the writings and visions of Hadewijch of Antwerp, a thirteenth-century Flemish Beguine.

Joanna Ziegler is Associate Professor of Visual Arts at the College of the Holy Cross. She is the author of Sculpture of Compassion: The Pieta and the Beguines in the Southern Low Countries c.1300-c.1600.