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Saving Shame - Martyrs, Saints, and Other Abject Subjects (Hardcover, New)
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Saving Shame - Martyrs, Saints, and Other Abject Subjects (Hardcover, New)
Series: Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion
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Saving Shame Martyrs, Saints, and Other Abject Subjects Virginia
Burrus "An intellectually rich exploration of the theological
dimensions of shame in early Christian literature."--David Brakke,
Indiana University " Burrus's] findings . . . will give scholars
pause to rethink some of the fundamental assumptions that we often
bring to the study of this topic and period. Her work shows that
there is still plenty of intellectual room to roam in the landscape
of Greco-Roman and late antique Christian scholarship."--"Medieval
Review" Virginia Burrus explores one of the strongest and most
disturbing aspects of the Christian tradition, its excessive
preoccupation with shame. While Christianity has frequently been
implicated in the conversion of ancient Mediterranean cultures from
shame- to guilt-based, and thus in the emergence of the modern
West's emphasis on guilt, Burrus seeks to recuperate the importance
of shame for Christian culture. Focusing on late antiquity, she
explores a range of fascinating phenomena, from the flamboyant
performances of martyrs to the imagined abjection of Christ, from
the self-humiliating disciplines of ascetics to the intimate
disclosures of Augustine. Burrus argues that Christianity innovated
less by replacing shame with guilt than by embracing shame. Indeed,
the ancient Christians sacrificed honor but laid claim to their own
shame with great energy, at once intensifying and transforming it.
Public spectacles of martyrdom became the most visible means
through which vulnerability to shame was converted into a defiant
witness of identity; this was also where the sacrificial death of
the self exemplified by Christ's crucifixion was most explicitly
appropriated by his followers. Shame showed a more private face as
well, as Burrus demonstrates. The ambivalent lure of fleshly
corruptibility was explored in the theological imaginary of
incarnational Christology. It was further embodied in the
transgressive disciplines of saints who plumbed the depths of
humiliation. Eventually, with the advent of literary and monastic
confessional practices, the shame of sin's inexhaustibility made
itself heard in the revelations of testimonial discourse. In
conversation with an eclectic constellation of theorists, Burrus
interweaves her historical argument with theological,
psychological, and ethical reflections. She proposes, finally, that
early Christian texts may have much to teach us about the secrets
of shame that lie at the heart of our capacity for humility,
courage, and transformative love. Virginia Burrus is Professor of
Early Church History at Drew University and the author of "The Sex
Lives of Saints: An Erotics of Ancient Hagiography," also available
from the University of Pennsylvania Press. Divinations: Rereading
Late Ancient Religion 2007 208 pages 6 x 9 ISBN 978-0-8122-4044-3
Cloth $47.50s 31.00 ISBN 978-0-8122-0151-2 Ebook $47.50s 31.00
World Rights Cultural Studies, Religion
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