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Mirabai: The Making of a Saint
Nancy M. Martin
This book traces the narrative genealogy of the immensely popular Indian saint Mirabai from the earliest manuscript references to her through colonial and nationalist formations to scholarly and popular portrayals in the decades leading up to Indian independence. This iconic sixteenth-century woman is renowned for her unwavering love of God, her disregard for social hierarchies and gendered notions of honor and shame, and her challenge thereby to familial, feudal, and religious authorities. Though verifiable historical facts regarding her life are few, stories about her have multiplied across social, linguistic, regional, and religious boundaries. With attention to who is telling which story and why, this book examines her place in the developing strands of devotional Hinduism and her role in the gendered and contested terrain of nineteenth- and twentieth-century debates around the education and independence of women and the crafting of Indian and Hindu identities. Consideration is given not only to elite voices but also to those marginalized by caste, class, and gender who find in her a source of solidarity and dignity, shared suffering and resistance, and a precedent for pursuing lives outside of or in addition to normative social expectations, particularly for women. Highlighting the impact also of key individuals from Rabindranath Tagore and Gandhi to Mahadevi Varma and Subbulakshmi on perceptions of the saint, the book offers a comprehensive and multilayered portrait of this remarkable and still controversial woman who continues to be a source of inspiration for so many both in India and around the world.
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The Gendering of Voice in Medieval Hindu Literature
Nancy M. Martin
"To fully grasp the implications of the gendering of voice in this literature, we must first understand the religious context that generates these voices and the life stories of the saintly figures in whose names these voices continue to be spoken. Accordingly, we will trace the origins and nature of devotional Hinduism. Theologically gender inclusive and embracing a feminine spiritual identity, the stories and songs of its saints will nevertheless reveal an ongoing bias against women and upholding of patriarchal norms that is continually challenged, particularly by women saints whose life stories follow very different trajectories than their male counterparts, and that male and female devotees alike must transcend. We will explore the nuances of male saints speaking of their love for God in female voice, in contrast to women saints doing so. Such analysis will lead us to consider the larger implications of subsequent devotees, both male and female, speaking in these gendered saints' voices. While touching on a wide range of male and female saints' stories and songs, we will focus in more detail on arguably the two most popular poet-saints-the sixteenth century royal female devotee of Krgia, MirabaI, and, by way of contrast, the fifteenth-century low-caste male devotee of the Lord beyond form, Kabir."
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Exile as “Place” for Empathy
Ilana Maymind
"Historically, exile has been a political act that has various philosophical and psychological ramifications. In the Roman world, exile was a substitute for physical death.1 Adorno argues that exile is a 'life in suspension' as a result of being placed in the diasporic conditions of estrangement. For Adorno, 'it is part of morality not to be at home in one’s home,'2 since being in exile makes one a perpetual stranger and sharpens one’s ethical stance. The idea of being a stranger leads to the significance of the issue of empathy. In this chapter, I discuss Shinran and Maimonides as I maintain that the focus in some of their writings demonstrates the effects of exile as 'place' for empathy. I further propose a link between empathy and ethics by viewing empathy as a measure of genuine ethical concern."
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Invest Your Humanity: Celebrating Marvin Meyer
Julye Bidmead and Gail J. Stearns
Edited by Julye Bidmead, Gail J. Stearns
Foreword by Daniele C. Struppa, Elaine Pagels
This volume is dedicated to Marvin C. Meyer, a person of passionate spirit and personality, known to many as the preeminent scholar who brought to life the Gnostic Gospels. Meyer made ancient discoveries relevant to our lives: from his work with National Geographic, informing thousands, to the time he spent with individual students, opening their eyes to the mystery and meaning of a Coptic text. Friends, students, and scholars here pay tribute to Meyer with reflections, new pedagogies, and explorations in biblical texts, ancient magic, and archaeological discoveries.
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Rajasthan: Mirabai and her Poetry
Nancy M. Martin
"Mirabai (born c. 1500) is among the most well-known and loved of the Hindu women saints devoted to Krishna. Her devotion to her Lord is absolute, as her life and songs attest. Her story is a romantic tale of star-crossed lovers—one human, the other divine—marked by perseverance and triumph in the midst of great suffering. Songs sung in her name speak of the joys and trials of the devotional life and evoke the full range of romantic love, from the devastating longing that marks separated lovers and the blazing anger of a woman betrayed to the sweet and intoxicating pleasures of union. This woman of the sixteenth century has inspired and captured the imagination of fellow devotees across the centuries, so much so that her story has been told and retold in innumerable forms and more than a thousand songs have been sung in her name. Within the context of the wider Krishna tradition, this exemplary devotee provides an important bridge between the idyllic and eternal world of Braj, where the gopis and Radha sport with Krishna, and the world of samsara, wherein ordinary people must practice their devotion to the amorous Dark Lord."
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The Holocaust Chronicle
Marilyn Harran, Dieter Kuntz, Russell Lemons, Robert A. Michael, Keith Pickus, and John K. Roth
The complete full-text of a seminal book for Holocaust studies, The Holocaust Chronicle. The site contains every word of the main text, as well as the index and all of the images from the print edition. The information within was gathered and fact-checked by top Holocaust scholars, and covers everything 1933-1945, beginning with the restrictive laws passed when Hitler took power to the deaths of at least six million Jews, Gypsies, Freemasons, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, prisoners of war, Communists, and others.
Below you may find selected books and book chapters from Religious Studies faculty in the Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences.
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