Browsing by Author "Fanger, Claire"
Now showing 1 - 16 of 16
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Bodies of Medieval Women as Dangerous, Liminal, and Holy: Medical and Religious Representations of Female Bodies in Hildegard of Bingen's Causae et curae and Scivias(2018-04-19) Lee, Minji; Fanger, ClaireIn my dissertation, I aim to discover how women’s reproductive bodies were represented in medieval medical and religious writings not only in men’s but also women’s views. Especially, I use Hildegard of Bingen’s works in order to emphasize the positive and even salvational roles embedded in women’s sexual bodies in medieval Christianity. I argue that Hildegard presented the professional and elaborated views toward women both in medical and religious writings. Despite being the weaker sex, Hildegard was educated enough to bring her unique views of the world, human beings, and women. In her Causae et curae, she emphasized the positive depiction of menstruation as proper purgation and women’s big contribution to pregnancy and childbirth. In the Scivias, Hildegard represented Ecclesia as having childbirth to the souls in her vision, which signifies her positive evaluation of women’s sexual bodies and reproductive procedures. This thesis is important since it shows how women used the cultural depictions of women and developed the symbols and representations of women so that they achieved more profound authority with their gender. It is a part of women’s history that women did not necessarily deny their gender but promoted their femaleness in theory and life.Item Christian Ritual Magic in the Middle Ages(Wiley-Blackwell, 2013) Fanger, ClaireThis article gives a brief introduction to the area of medieval ritual magic, outlining the main kinds of texts likely to be understood as belonging to the category – image magic, necromancy, and theurgy or angel magic. Before moving to an overview of the current state of scholarship, it makes note of some watershed works that helped to open up the area of intellectual magic for study. A number of interesting new discoveries, both textual and historical, have been made since the 1990s, and these discoveries have in turn instigated a push toward further exploration and editing of medieval texts and manuscripts of ritual magic, which is turning out to be a more interesting and diverse category than might once have been assumed.Item Embargo Denying God: Involuntary Blame, Guilt, Trauma, and Innovation in Pre- Nicaean Religious Abjurations and Exile(2024-04-17) Holter, Matthew Robert; DeConick, April; Fanger, Claire; Reis-Dennis, SamThis thesis makes two arguments. Firstly, traumatic experiences greatly contributed to Cyprian and Hermas’ innovations on exile and apostasy readmission. More specifically, Hermas, a second-century layman, and Cyprian, the esteemed third-century bishop of Carthage, both experienced trauma for their respective deemed religious failures. For Hermas, such a trauma manifested when he probably recanted Christ during captivity to spare his private property. Cyprian’s trauma manifested when his peers, the clergy at Rome, deemed him as a coward for fleeing, not remaining with his flock, during the Decian Persecution. While theorists hold that trauma responses are not uniform, it is clear, I argue, that both Hermas and Cyprian’s doctrinal innovations on post-baptismal sin remission for apostates (chapter 1) and exile (chapter 2) correspond to common trauma responses. For instance, theorists’ conclusions that victims rationalize and remediate their traumas accurately align with Hermas’ response to his denial. For Hermas remediated his trauma by offering himself and other apostates an opportunity for post-baptismal sin remission. Likewise, Cyprian, who openly admitted his pain over fleeing during persecution, responded to his trauma through sublimating the act from something sinful, if not suspect, into an act of religious virtue. Indeed, the sublimation response to trauma, as seen through Cyprian, also occurs among trauma victims. Secondly, this thesis argues that a controversial, yet understandable, logic of involuntary blame explains why Hermas and Cyprian faulted Christian deniers for recanting the faith under assiduous extenuating circumstances. Parties can still feel shame and guilt for actions perpetrated involuntarily. Therefore, mandating penance for such parties who abjured the faith involuntarily– even during torture– makes sense considering guilt’s objective to restore agents morally and communally. However, understanding this logic does not signify that inculpating Christians for abjuring Christ during torture is not controversial– both in antiquity and in post modernity. For instance, rival ancient Christian sects like the Elkesaite and the Felicissimus sects both ascribed to the neutrality of external manifestations of religious abjuration if a participant claimed a contrary internal intent. Therefore, by integrating a contemporary shame and guilt philosophical methodology into early Christian martyrology, this thesis answers an ignored historical, religious, and theological question: Why exactly did noted early Church figures and texts blame apostates for their involuntary abjurations?Item The Dynamics of Holy Power as Reflected in the Narrative Structure in the Lives of St Martin and St Anthony(Canadian Society of Medievalists, 1987) Fanger, ClaireItem Esoteric Techniques within the Works of New Monastic Teachers: An Analysis of Cynthia Bourgeault, Richard Rohr, and James Finley(2021-04-15) Delavan, Jonathan Neil; Fanger, ClaireNew Monasticism is a concept that describes the phenomenon of agents and teachers emerging from religious institutions (e.g., monks and clergy) to teach a largely liberal and perennial spirituality to a diverse and globalized audience. Examples of these new monastic teachers include Richard Rohr (a Franciscan friar who founded the Center for Action and Contemplation to promote his brand of new monasticism), Cynthia Bourgeault (an Episcopal priest who teaches a perennialist sense of wisdom spirituality), and James Finley (a retired clinical psychologist who studied with Thomas Merton and teaches from Merton’s interreligious contemplation). All three attempt to contextualize their perennialist writings through discursive techniques common among past esoteric texts and teachers. However, these same new monastic authors have distanced themselves from the “esoteric” as a description of their teachings, arguing that their spiritualties are anything but “secretive, elitist, or obscured.” Can religious authors structure their teachings with elements common in esoteric literature while simultaneously rejecting the general nomenclature or concept of esotericism? I argue that Rohr, Bourgeault, and Finley engage with a dynamic tension between employing esoteric techniques while denying a general understanding of the “esoteric” within their works. I will examine Bourgeault’s The Wisdom Way of Knowing (2003), Rohr’s The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective (2001), and Finley’s Merton’s Palace of Nowhere (1978) to demonstrate how this tension is reflected in each author’s early work. I will use the typology of esotericism created by Antoine Faivre (Access to Western Esotericism) and Kocku von Stuckrad (Western Esotericism and Locations of Knowledge in Medieval and Early Modern Europe) to identify the esoteric elements present with each of the three works above and their respective author’s teachings. My conclusion is that it is not only possible to participate with this tension on esotericism but that it is likely inherent within new monasticism in general, specifically with their shared goal for their teachings to improve the lives of individuals and the entire world.Item “In a Twelfth-century Hand, in Latin, with Abbreviations”: The Independent Scholar as a Mirror for the University(Canadian Society of Medievalists, 2003) Fanger, ClaireItem Libri Nigromantici: The Good, the Bad, and the Ambiguous in John of Morignyメs Flowers of Heavenly Teaching(University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012) Fanger, ClaireItem Magic(Oxford University Press, 2013) Fanger, Claire; Pollmann, Karla; Otten, WillemienThis section of The Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine explores magic. The author discusses: magic in Aug.'s thought; medieval reception-encyclopedic and legal; medieval reception-theological and philosophical; Renaissance magic and the Protestant Reformation; and modern academic and Max Weber.Item Mirror, Mask and Anti-self: Forces of Literary Creation in Dion Fortune and W.B. Yeats(Michigan State University Press, 2008) Fanger, Claire; Versluis, Arthur; Irwin, Lee; Richards, John; Weinstein, MelindaIn what follows, we will explore some of the links between self-creation and artistic creation in the works of two early twentieth century occultists who were also responsible for works of fiction and poetry: the novelist Dion Fortune, and the great modern poet W. B. Yeats. A part of my concern will be to show how the functions and processes of creative activity documented by these authors may be mapped onto a set of essentially Freudian ideas, particularly those surrounding narcissism.Item Sacred and Secular Knowledge Systems in the "Ars Notoria" and the "Flowers of Heavenly Teaching" of John of Morigny(Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2010) Fanger, Claire; Kilcher, Andreas B.; Theisohn, PhilippItem Shimmering Magic: Cross-cultural Explorations of the Aesthetic, Moral, and Mystical Significance of Reflecting and Deflecting Shine(University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017) Romberg, Raquel; Fanger, ClaireThis introduction lays basic theoretical groundwork that helps tie together these different articles on ritual uses of shimmer. Contributors examine not only how contemporary technologies of mass production (tinfoil, plastic sequins) and reproduction (photographs) have entered both iconoclast and iconophile ritual and popular culture spheres; they also illustrate how metaphoric and metonymic forms of agency and presence are attributed to shimmering properties and substances. Contributors have a common purpose in probing the limit of common sense assumptions about the agency of shine as presencing (rather than just representing) the divine.Item The African American Dancing Body: a Site for Religious Experience through Dance(2021-04-28) Diouf, Shani Dessie Inell; Fanger, ClaireAfrican American religious dance is not a topic previously explored in detail beyond dance that has historically existed in the church within the confines of Christianity. However the African American religious experience is not limited to Christianity and is inclusive of various religious practices extending beyond the church and thus required deeper exploration of what constitutes an African American religious experience, especially as it relates to dance. In an effort to explore this, careful exploration of the Ring Shout was necessary as a tool in discussing the evolution of the African American religious dances. Using the Ring Shout as a lens for viewing subsequent dances of the diaspora within my thesis, I acknowledge it as the first African American Religious dance with special emphasis being placed on its purpose and function as a form of communal action and way of achieving oneness by the practitioners, ultimately laying the foundation for subsequent dances. I also include interviews that I conducted with dance practitioners of different dance genres about their perceived notions and personal experiences of what makes a dance religious. I ultimately arrive at a definition of African American religious dance that is neither aligned with Christianity or any other specific religion but is instead representative of the communal identity of being Black in America and a visual movement manifestation of the wrestling of what that engenders. I ultimately assert that African American religious dance can be both inclusive of secular dance and a religious experience simultaneously.Item The Classification of Death-Related Experiences: A Novel Approach to the Spectrum of Near-Death, Coincidental-Death, and Empathetic-Death Events(2021-05-07) von dem Hagen, Toni dem; Fanger, ClaireABSTRACT The Classification of Death-Related Experiences: In 1866, Edmund Gurney, Frederic Myers and Frank Podmore published Phantasms of the Living, which included descriptions of “crisis apparitions” where someone who was dying was “seen” by someone who was unaware of this fact. Since then, the concept of Near-Death Experiences (“NDE’s”) have become an increasingly popular subject in both nonfiction works and medical research, yet little attention has been paid to crisis apparitions. Here, I argue that NDE’s and crisis apparitions—which I separate into the categories of Coincidental-Death and Empathetic-Death Experiences—contain similar phenomenological attributes. These Death-Related Experiences (“DRE’s”) thus occur along a spectrum; the empathetic relationship between the decedent and the experiencer acts as the determinative element. This definition and categorization of DRE’s is a novel concept in super normal research.Item The Formative Feminine and the Immobility of God: Gender and Cosmogony in Bernard Silvestris's Cosmographia(University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998) Fanger, Claire; Townsend, David; Taylor, AndrewItem The Metamorphosis of Monsters: Christian Identity in Medieval England and the Life of St Margaret(2015-03-26) Heyes, Michael Edward; Fanger, Claire; Kripal, Jeffrey J.; Campana, Joseph A.; Clements, Niki K.This dissertation examines several late medieval Lives of St. Margaret written in England to show that the monsters of the Life offer both a synchronic and diachronic perspective on the construction of Christian sexual identity in both professional religious and lay communities in medieval England. St. Margaret was one of the most popular saints in medieval England, and monsters play a key role in her martyrdom. Throughout her narrative, Margaret is accosted by a demonic prefect, hungry dragon, and loquacious black demon. Having defeated each monster in turn, she is taken to the place of her martyrdom where she prays for supernatural boons for her adherents. As a virgin martyr, Margaret’s resistance to these monstrous aggressors (and the suffering which she undergoes as a result) is the most important aspect of her story: not only does it represent Margaret’s raison d’être, but also the source of the virtus that benefits her cult. Previous scholarship has focused on Margaret’s resistance to Olibrius as a means to understand her impact on the identities of her virginal or maternal adherents, and on Margaret’s speech and deeds as important socio-cultural data which can be used to inform the context of Margaret’s medieval readers. This dissertation also treats each version in question as a source for information on Margaret’s medieval audience, but rather than concentrating upon Margaret’s speech and actions as previous research has, this dissertation instead focuses on the monsters that populate Margaret’s Life. This focus allows a new evaluation of Margaret’s simultaneous appeal to virgins and mothers through the polysemous figure of the dragon, the didactic elements of the black demon’s speech, the competing claims of religious identity in the figure of Olibrius, and the importance and content of the prayers at the end of Margaret’s Life for her maternal adherents. Equally important is that the diachronic focus of the dissertation reveals that while Margaret herself seems to change little over time – showing a slow metamorphosis from demonic adversary to maternal advocatrix – the monsters are more volatile, changing character as needed to create a narrative that constantly exists in the reader’s present.Item Wonderment: A Philosophical Analysis of Its Nature and Its Attending Virtue(2024-04-18) Smith, Joshua Tyler; Schroeder, Timothy; Bradford, Gwen; Fanger, ClaireThis dissertation delves into the emotion of wonderment and proposes that it serves as a foundation for a neglected virtue: openness to wonderment. I divide this work into two parts. In the initial part, Chapters 2 and 3, I present my account of wonderment and its close connection with the perception of a beautiful mystery. In order to motivate this account, I provide sketches of what beauty and mystery are and how responding to them constitutes wonderment. This account nicely captures the cognitive and emotional engagement that is recognizable in wonderment and how wonderment is both inviting and daunting. In the second part of this work, detailed in Chapters 4 and 5, I transition to consider the virtue of openness to wonderment. In this second part, I have two broad aims. First, to show that this neglected virtue is, in fact, a virtue. Second, to show that this virtue is valuable for human life. Openness to wonderment is characterized not simply by passive receptivity but also equally by active cultivation of our attention and appreciation for wonder-inducing experiences. I consider several features of familiar virtues, like being a dispositional state, involving emotion and deliberate choice, and orienting actions to a noble end and I show that openness to wonderment has all of these familiar features of virtues. I highlight that not only is this virtue’s value grounded in it being a virtue, but it is also valuable in that it enhances one's capacity for transformative contemplation of the world. I end by discussing further avenues for future research that explore its connection to contemplation and one's worldview.