Gender and Medieval Mysticism from India to Europe

ISBN-13: 9781032358499 / Angielski

Alexandra Verini; Abir Bazaz

Opis

This book opens up a dialogue between pre-modern women identified as mystics in diverse locations from South Asia to Europe.

Recenzje

"This is an impressive, reflective volume of diverse essays that help to understand a historical pattern between 700 and 1500 CE, as women increasingly confronted gender norms by asserting religious/spiritual authority—often referred to or translated as ‘mysticism’. By strategically limiting the scope to South Asia and Europe, the contributors present a manageable set of examples that can be brought into meaningful conversation, thereby joining in the growing current of critical comparison in religious studies. We find here careful analyses of detail-rich local cases, reflections on provincialities of key terms (especially ‘mysticism’), and considerations of transregional and long-term relationships between gender and appeals to religion/spirituality to construct the world differently. Highly recommended for anyone interested in understanding women and gender in the premodern world, mysticism as a social force, cross-cultural translation, and the critically comparative study of religion." – Jon Keune, Michigan State University, USA

Spis treści

1 Introduction

Alexandra Verini

Part I Mysticism as Resistance

2 Weeping as Resistance in Islamic and Christian Contemplative Hagiography

Ayoush Lazikani

3 Mysticism between Women in Early Medieval England

Kathryn Maude

4 Public Scandal and Mystical Marriage: Margery Kempe and Mīrābaī

Katherine Zieman

Part II Reimagining the Female Mystic

5 Tongue Untied: Women and Forbidden Speech in Medieval India

Subhashree Chakravarty

6 Enclosed Life and Mystical Form in the Ancrene Wisse

Aparna Chaudhuri

7 Gender Fluidity in Sìrīvaisònòava Theology: The Status of the Cowherd Women

Manasicha Akepiyapornchai

Part III Shaping Mystical Femininity

8 The Discipline of Mahadevi and Lalla: Religious Ambiguity in the Gendering of Ascetic Female Hindu Saints

Dean Accardi

9 Imagined femininity in Sant Mysticism

Galina Rousseva-Sokolova

10 Invoking Mirabai: Elision and Illumination in the Global Study of Women Mystics

Nancy Martin

Part IV Women Mystics Across Time

11 Swaying in the Presence of the Saints: Women's Mediation of Spiritual Authority in the Sidi Sufi Devotional Tradition of Gujarat

Jazmin Graves

12 Love Knows no Bounds: Contemporary Artist Engagement with Marguerite Porete and Hadewijch

Louise Nelstrop

13 Afterword

Liz Herbert McAvoy

O autorze

Alexandra Verini is an Assistant Professor of English at Ashoka University.

Abir Bazaz is an Assistant Professor of English at Ashoka University.