Month: November 2012

Ancient Greece and Rome are rarely depicted objectively in modern popular culture. Sometimes these ancient cultures, epitomised by smooth white marble and classical beauty, are idealised and glorified. More commonly, they are depicted as wicked and corrupt, decadent and licentious, characterised by excessive drinking, the violence and bloodlust of the arena, sexual deviance and a lust for world domination. Intertwined with these characterisations are other groups, notably Jews and Christians, who may be depicted as foils to the pagan population. Portrayals of ancient Judaism and...

The publication of early witchcraft texts created witches by creating controversy about them. Witch-dramas, pamphlets, testimonies about witch-encounters, sermons, and accounts of trials published the anxieties, recounted the long standing suspicions, and sensationalised the physical manifestations that made women into witches. Sometimes accompanied by woodcuts, many texts insisted on the reality, materiality, and immediacy of witches and their familiars. In these, the early modern witch was represented as both a perpetrator of violence and the victim of it.The early modern witch is a...

Despite the attempts of feminists the conjunction between evil and the feminine seems unbroken. Established as secondary, derivative and hence inferior, women have been long suspected of being the source of human (though more often masculine) miseries, always in cahoots with the forces of evil and destruction. Paradoxically, at the same time, some have also been put on the pedestal and lauded as ideals of purity and dedication, yet these paragons only proved the rule that, on average, the feminine/woman equals imperfect and transgressive. Mischievous, beguiling, seductive, lascivious,...

En 2011, le ministre de la Culture et de la communication a déclaré Trésor national le Livre d’heures de Jeanne de France, un remarquable manuscrit royal enluminé sur vélin, réalisé en 1452, à l’occasion des noces de Jeanne de France, troisième fille du roi Charles VII.Ce livre d’heures n’a pas d’équivalent dans les collections publiques françaises. Son entrée dans les collections de la Bibliothèque nationale de France est donc de la première importance.La BnF doit acquérir cette œuvre avant la fin de cette année. Elle a d’ores et déjà mobilisé des...

Prochain numéro de la revue Oeuvres et critiques(dir. Rainer Zaiser)(coord. du numéro Fabrice Preyat)La valeur intellectuelle et les origines presque exclusivement masculines de l’apologétique chrétienne ont longtemps oblitéré le rôle des femmes dans la défense de la foi. La pratique « genrée « de l’apologétique invite pourtant à élargir les frontières d’une » discipline » qui, au xviiie siècle, s’ouvre aux leçons de la raison et de la sensibilité.Si, par son contenu, l’apologétique puise sans cesse aux sources de la Révélation, ses formes varient...