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Walsingham was medieval England's most important shrine to the
Virgin Mary and a popular pilgrimage site. Following its modern
revival it is also well known today. For nearly a thousand years,
it has been the subject of, or referred to in, music, poetry and
novels (by for instance Langland, Erasmus, Sidney, Shakespeare,
Hopkins, Eliot and Lowell). But only in the last twenty years or so
has it received serious scholarly attention. This volume represents
the first collection of multi-disciplinary essays on Walsingham's
broader cultural significance. Contributors to this book focus on
the hitherto neglected issue of Walsingham's cultural impact: the
literary, historical, art historical and sociological significance
that Walsingham has had for over six hundred years. The
collection's essays consider connections between landscape and the
sacred, the body and sexuality and Walsingham's place in
literature, music and, more broadly, especially since the
Reformation, in the construction of cultural memory. The historical
range of the essays includes Walsingham's rise to prominence in the
later Middle Ages, its destruction during the English Reformation,
and the presence of uncanny echoes and traces in early modern
English culture, including poems, ballads, music and some of the
plays of Shakespeare. Contributions also examine the cultural
dynamics of the remarkable revival of Walsingham as a place of
pilgrimage and as a cultural icon in the Victorian and modern
periods. Hitherto, scholarship on Walsingham has been almost
entirely confined to the history of religion. In contrast,
contributors to this volume include internationally known scholars
from literature, cultural studies, history, sociology, anthropology
and musicology as well as theology.
Dressy men as a type of celebrity have played a distinctive part in
the cultural - and even in the political - life of Britain over
several centuries. But unlike the twenty-first-century hipster, the
dandies of the British past provoked intense degrees of fascination
and horror in their homeland and played an important role in
British society from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. This
book - illustrated with contemporary prints, portraits and
caricatures - explores that social and cultural history through a
focus on the macaroni, the dandy and the aesthete. The first was
noted for his flamboyance, the second for his austere perfectionism
and the third for his sexual perversity. All were highly
controversial in their time, pioneering new ways of displaying and
performing gender, as demonstrated by the impact of key figures
such as Lord Hervey, George 'Beau' Brummell and Oscar Wilde. This
groundbreaking study tells the scandalous story of fashionable men
and their clothes as a reflection of changing attitudes not only to
style but also to gender and sexuality.
Walsingham was medieval England's most important shrine to the
Virgin Mary and a popular pilgrimage site. Following its modern
revival it is also well known today. For nearly a thousand years,
it has been the subject of, or referred to in, music, poetry and
novels (by for instance Langland, Erasmus, Sidney, Shakespeare,
Hopkins, Eliot and Lowell). But only in the last twenty years or so
has it received serious scholarly attention. This volume represents
the first collection of multi-disciplinary essays on Walsingham's
broader cultural significance. Contributors to this book focus on
the hitherto neglected issue of Walsingham's cultural impact: the
literary, historical, art historical and sociological significance
that Walsingham has had for over six hundred years. The
collection's essays consider connections between landscape and the
sacred, the body and sexuality and Walsingham's place in
literature, music and, more broadly, especially since the
Reformation, in the construction of cultural memory. The historical
range of the essays includes Walsingham's rise to prominence in the
later Middle Ages, its destruction during the English Reformation,
and the presence of uncanny echoes and traces in early modern
English culture, including poems, ballads, music and some of the
plays of Shakespeare. Contributions also examine the cultural
dynamics of the remarkable revival of Walsingham as a place of
pilgrimage and as a cultural icon in the Victorian and modern
periods. Hitherto, scholarship on Walsingham has been almost
entirely confined to the history of religion. In contrast,
contributors to this volume include internationally known scholars
from literature, cultural studies, history, sociology, anthropology
and musicology as well as theology.
This book offers a range of interdisciplinary evaluations of the
history of same-sex relationships in the Church as they have been
understood in different periods and contexts. The relationships
between diverse forms of religious and sexual identities have been
widely contested in the media since the rise of the lesbian and gay
liberation movement in the 1970s. One of the key images that often
appears in public debate is that of 'lesbians and gays in the
Church' as a significant 'problem'. Research over the past forty
years or so into queer theology and the history of same-sex desire
has shown that such issues have played an important role in the
story of Christianity over many centuries. The contributors to this
volume have all been inspired by the challenges of such revisionist
study to explore religion and same-sex desire as a field of
opportunity for investigation and debate. They uncover some of the
hidden histories of the Church and its theologies: they tell
sometimes unexpected stories, many of which invite serious further
study. It is quite clear through history that some in the churches
have been at the vanguard of legislative and social change.
Similarly, some churches have offered safe queer spaces. Overall,
these essays offer new interpretations and original research into
the history of sexuality that helps inform the contemporary debate
in the churches as well as in the academy.
This book offers a range of interdisciplinary evaluations of the
history of same-sex relationships in the Church as they have been
understood in different periods and contexts. The relationships
between diverse forms of religious and sexual identities have been
widely contested in the media since the rise of the lesbian and gay
liberation movement in the 1970s. One of the key images that often
appears in public debate is that of 'lesbians and gays in the
Church' as a significant 'problem'. Research over the past forty
years or so into queer theology and the history of same-sex desire
has shown that such issues have played an important role in the
story of Christianity over many centuries. The contributors to this
volume have all been inspired by the challenges of such revisionist
study to explore religion and same-sex desire as a field of
opportunity for investigation and debate. They uncover some of the
hidden histories of the Church and its theologies: they tell
sometimes unexpected stories, many of which invite serious further
study. It is quite clear through history that some in the churches
have been at the vanguard of legislative and social change.
Similarly, some churches have offered safe queer spaces. Overall,
these essays offer new interpretations and original research into
the history of sexuality that helps inform the contemporary debate
in the churches as well as in the academy.
"I do not say you are it, but you look it, and you pose at it,
which is just as bad," Lord Queensbury challenged Oscar Wilde in
the courtroom which erupted in laughter accusing Wilde of posing as
a sodomite. What was so terrible about posing as a sodomite, and
why was Queensbury's horror greeted with such amusement? In Oscar
Wilde Prefigured, Dominic Janes suggests that what divided the two
sides in this case was not so much the question of whether Wilde
was or was not a sodomite, but whether or not it mattered that
people could appear to be sodomites. For many, intimations of
sodomy were simply a part of the amusing spectacle of sophisticated
life.Oscar Wilde Prefigured is a study of the prehistory of this
"queer moment" in 1895. Janes explores the complex ways in which
men who desired sex with men in Britain had expressed such
interests through clothing, style, and deportment since the
mid-eighteenth century. He supplements the well-established
narrative of the inscription of sodomitical acts into a homosexual
label and identity at the end of the nineteenth century by teasing
out the means by which same-sex desires could be signaled through
visual display in Georgian and Victorian Britain. Wilde, it turns
out, is not the starting point for public queer figuration. He is
the pivot by which Georgian figures and twentieth-century camp
stereotypes meet. Drawing on the mutually reinforcing phenomena of
dandyism and caricature of alleged effeminates, Janes examines a
wide range of images drawn from theater, fashion, and the popular
press to reveal new dimensions of identity politics, gender
performance, and queer culture.
In this unique intervention in the study of queer culture, Dominic
Janes highlights that, under the gaze of social conservatism, 'gay'
life was hiding in plain sight. Indeed, he argues that the worlds
of glamour, fashion, art and countercultural style provided rich
opportunities for the construction of queer spectacle in London.
Inspired by the legacies of Oscar Wilde, interwar and later
20th-century men such as Cecil Beaton expressed transgressive
desires in forms inspired by those labelled 'freaks' and, thereby,
made major contributions to the histories of art, design, fashion,
sexuality, and celebrity. Janes reinterprets the origins of gay and
queer cultures by charting the interactions between marginalized
freaks and chic fashionistas. He establishes a new framework for
future analyses of other cities and media, and of the roles of
women and diverse identities.
In this unique intervention in the study of queer culture, Dominic
Janes highlights that, under the gaze of social conservatism, 'gay'
life was hiding in plain sight. Indeed, he argues that the worlds
of glamour, fashion, art and countercultural style provided rich
opportunities for the construction of queer spectacle in London.
Inspired by the legacies of Oscar Wilde, interwar and later
20th-century men such as Cecil Beaton expressed transgressive
desires in forms inspired by those labelled 'freaks' and, thereby,
made major contributions to the histories of art, design, fashion,
sexuality, and celebrity. Janes reinterprets the origins of gay and
queer cultures by charting the interactions between marginalized
freaks and chic fashionistas. He establishes a new framework for
future analyses of other cities and media, and of the roles of
women and diverse identities.
This volume explores the connections between faith, the
presentation of belief and the processes by which it is sold and
consumed. The contributors have all been researching the way in
which religion operates in a market culture and the degree to which
one can use the notions of branding, advertising and marketing to
understand missionary and revival activities. Conversely, one might
ask whether religious methods of self-promotion underlay the
development of some of the techniques of private enterprise. The
contributors come from theology, history, art history, literature
and business studies backgrounds. This edited collection breaks new
ground by presenting a line-up of case studies on the issue of the
boundaries of business, Christian religion and visual culture which
have been selected so as to provide a wide range of comparative
textual, visual and material evidence. "The 'marketing of religion'
has become a subject of renewed interest in recent years, engaging
scholars from traditional areas of inquiry (religious studies,
theology), but also those in business, performance studies, and the
social sciences. These essays promise to help us understand not
simply what is done or how it is done, but what interpretive
strategies and options help to discern layers of meaning and
significance in cultural products like advertisements, film, and
religious tracts." -Michael L. Budde, Professor of Political
Science, DePaul University. "The buying and selling of things is an
element in the practice of virtually every religion one can think
of. And the more one looks into it, the more multi-facetted it
becomes and the more light it throws on wider society. In some
parts of today's religions ithas taken on a role that, to the
outside observer at least, often seems central to religious
practice, and sometimes to offer a parallel or even rival set of
understandings to those of the orthodox parole." -Crispin Paine,
University College, Chichester, UK, Editor of Material Religion:
The Journal of Objects, Art and Belief.
To what extent did people think they could identify an 'obvious'
sodomite before the construction of the homosexual as a type of
person during the latter part of the nineteenth century? What role
did secrecy and denial play in relation to the visual expression of
same-sex desire before the term 'the closet' came into widespread
use in the latter part of the twentieth century? And what,
therefore, did sodomites/homosexuals/gays/queers look like in
Britain in 1700, 1800, 1900 and 2000? Could they be spotted mincing
down the street? Or were such as these just the flamboyant few
whose presence conveniently drew attention away from the many
others who wanted to appear 'normal'? These issues are not
peripheral to the struggle of the last several decades for
individual self-determination and self-expression. It was this set
of cultural constructions that the pioneering writer Eve Kosofsky
Sedgwick (1950-2009) attacked in her book Epistemology of the
Closet as representing 'the defining structure for gay oppression
in this century'. This book represents a visual culture counterpart
to Sedgwick's study and aims, through the use of a series of
interdisciplinary case-studies, to explore both the pre-history of
the closet since the eighteenth century and its evolution through
to the present day. Chapters explore key moments and issues within
the British cultural experience and make pioneering use of a wide
range of source materials ranging from art to fashion, literature,
philosophy, theology, film and archival records.
In recent years, terrorism has become closely associated with
martyrdom, in the minds of many terrorists and in the view of
nations around the world. Islam contains manifold concepts of
martyrdom, some of which link ''bearing witness'' to faith and God.
Martyrdom is also central to the Christian tradition, not only in
the form of Christ's Passion or saints faced with persecution and
death, but in the duty to lead a good and charitable life. In both
religions, the association of religious martyrdom with political
terror has a long and difficult legacy. The essays of this volume
illuminate these legacies-following, for example, Christian
martyrdom from its origins in the Roman world, to the experience of
the deaths of ''terrorist'' leaders of the French Revolution, to
parallels in the contemporary world-and explore historical
parallels in Islamic, Christian, and secular traditions. Featuring
essays from eminent scholars in a wide range of disciplines,
Martyrdom and Terorrism provides a timely comparative history of
the practices and discourses of terrorism and martyrdom from
antiquity to the twenty-first century.
From the conversion of the emperor Constantine in the early fourth
century, vast sums of money were spent on the building and
sumptuous decoration of churches. The resulting works of art
contain many of the greatest monuments of late antique and early
medieval society. But how did such expenditure fit with Christ's
message of poverty and simplicity? In attempting to answer that
question, this 1998 study employs theories on the use of metaphor
to show how physical beauty could stand for spiritual excellence.
As well as explaining the evolving attitudes to sanctity, decorum
and display in Roman and medieval society, detailed analysis is
made of case studies of Latin biblical exegesis and gold-ground
mosaics so as to counterpoint the contemporary use of gold as a
Christian image in art and text.
In early Victorian England there was intense interest in
understanding the early Church as an inspiration for contemporary
sanctity. This was manifested in a surge in archaeological inquiry
and also in the construction of new churches using medieval models.
Some Anglicans began to use a much more complicated form of ritual
involving vestments, candles, and incense. This "Anglo-Catholic"
movement was vehemently opposed by evangelicals and dissenters, who
saw this as the vanguard of full-blown "popery." The disputed
buildings, objects, and art works were regarded by one side as
idolatrous and by the other as sacred and beautiful expressions of
devotion. Dominic Janes seeks to understand the fierce passions
that were unleashed by the contended practices and artifacts -
passions that found expression in litigation, in rowdy
demonstrations, and even in physical violence. During this period,
Janes observes, the wider culture was preoccupied with the idea of
pollution caused by improper sexuality. The Anglo-Catholics had
formulated a spiritual ethic that linked goodness and beauty. Their
opponents saw this visual worship as dangerously sensual. In
effect, this sacred material culture was seen as a sexual fetish.
The origins of this understanding, Janes shows, lay in radical
circles, often in the context of the production of anti-Catholic
pornography which titillated with the contemplation of images of
licentious priests, nuns, and monks.
What can the past tell us about the future(s) of the body? The
origins of this collection of papers lie in the work of the
Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities which has been involved in
presenting a series of international workshops and conferences on
the theme of the cultural life of the body. The rationale for these
events was that, in concepts as diverse as the cyborg, the
questioning of mind/body dualism, the contemporary image of the
suicide bomber and the patenting of human genes, we can identify
ways in which the future of the human body is at stake. This volume
represents an attempt, not so much to speculate about what might
happen, but to develop strategies for bodily empowerment so as to
get "back to the future of the body". The body, it is contended, is
not to be thought of as an "object" or a "sign" but as an active
participant in the shaping of cultural formations. And this is
emphatically not an exercise in digging corpses out of the
historical archive. The question is, rather, what can past lived
and thought experiences of the body tell us about what the body can
be(come)?"The continuing vitality of debate around the body was
proven by the range and depth of the papers presented at the
workshop on which this volume is based, `does the body have a
future?' Our overall theme required contributors to think through
embodiment in the past. This they did with considerable
interdisciplinary vigour, rigorousness and imagination."Prof. Donna
Dickenson, Director, Birkbeck Institute of the Humanities
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