This dissertation examines the works of five medieval women mystics—Hildegard of Bingen, Hadewijch of Brabant, Angela of Foligno, Birgitta of Sweden, and Julian of Norwich—to argue that these writers used feminine topoi, commonplace images of women symbolizing complex themes, to convey authority based on embodied experience that could not be claimed by their male associates. The lens used to study their works is rhetorical analysis informed by a feminist recuperative objective, one concerned with identifying effective rhetorical strategies useful to many women and men who have traditionally been denied speech, rather than with women's entrance into traditional rhetorical canons. In addition, the project deliberately engages scholarship by critics whose work has been informed by postcolonial, gender, and queer theories. This preference allows an exploration of the ways in which legitimized language becomes unstable and permeable, permitting members of oppressed and suppressed groups to usurp the authority of dominant discourse, and of historically situated rhetorical practice as the result of cultural and textual negotiations of gender.

Thesis (Th. M.)--Regent College, 2007. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 137-155).

O misticismo na Idade Média pode ser entendido como uma prática de espiritualidade que confirma a legitimidade da experiência íntima do ser humano com a divindade e desempenha uma função importante neste período histórico: ser um modo para se alcançar a relação direta e individual com Deus, num momento em que a instituição religiosa buscava a uniformização da fé, extirpando muitas práticas heterodoxas (heresias). Todavia, a mística se impõe como uma evolução natural da espiritualidade cristã no medievo ocidental, que estava submergida na razão (teologia), possibilitando ao indivíduo uma expressão mais livre e sensível da fé. O Boosco Deleitoso, classificado por estudiosos como uma obra mística, expressa esta condição emotiva da fé. O objetivo deste estudo, portanto, concentra-se em observar a mística na referente obra portuguesa. Para isso, foi preciso sustentar este trabalho em dois alicerces: a história e a psicanálise. No primeiro momento, far-se-á um estudo da espiritualidade medieval e a evolução da mística neste ambiente sociopolítico; em seguida, será traçado pontos de identificação entre o Boosco Deleitoso e os autores e autoras da mística medieval. No segundo momento, a partir de um estudo sobre a mística sob o olhar da psicanálise, buscar-se-á fazer uma abordagem literária dos discursos místicos tendo em consideração as contribuições teóricas de Freud e Lacan sobre o assunto. O corpus desta pesquisa se encontra entre os capítulos 118 e 153 do Boosco Deleitoso, parcela da obra que perceptivelmente foi influenciada pela mística medieval / The mysticism in the Middle Age can be understood as a spirituality that confirms the legitimacy of the close experience of the human being with the deity and plays an important function in this historical period: to be a way to reach the direct and individual relation with God, at a moment where the religious institution searched the standardization of the faith, excising many practical heterodox (heresies). However, the mystique if imposes as a natural evolution of the Christian spirituality in medieval occidental person, who was submerged in the reason (theology), making possible to the individual a freer and sensible expression of the faith. The Boosco Deleitoso, classified for studious as a mystique, express workmanship this emotional condition of the faith. The objective of this study, therefore, is concentrated in observing the mystique in the referring Portuguese workmanship. For this, she was necessary to support this work in two foundations: history and the psychoanalysis. At the first moment, a study of the medieval spirituality and the evolution of the mystique in this sociopolitical environment will become; after that, it will be traced points of identification between the Boosco Deleitoso and the authors and authors of the medieval mystique. At as the moment, from a study on the mystique under the look of the psychoanalysis, one will search to make a literary boarding of the mystics speeches having in consideration the theoretical contributions of Freud and Lacan on the subject. The corpus of this research if finds between chapters 118 and 153 of the Boosco Deleitoso, parcel out of the workmanship that perceivably was influenced by the medieval mystique

O misticismo na Idade Média pode ser entendido como uma prática de espiritualidade que confirma a legitimidade da experiência íntima do ser humano com a divindade e desempenha uma função importante neste período histórico: ser um modo para se alcançar a relação direta e individual com Deus, num momento em que a instituição religiosa buscava a uniformização da fé, extirpando muitas práticas heterodoxas (heresias). Todavia, a mística se impõe como uma evolução natural da espiritualidade cristã no medievo ocidental, que estava submergida na razão (teologia), possibilitando ao indivíduo uma expressão mais livre e sensível da fé. O Boosco Deleitoso, classificado por estudiosos como uma obra mística, expressa esta condição emotiva da fé. O objetivo deste estudo, portanto, concentra-se em observar a mística na referente obra portuguesa. Para isso, foi preciso sustentar este trabalho em dois alicerces: a história e a psicanálise. No primeiro momento, far-se-á um estudo da espiritualidade medieval e a evolução da mística neste ambiente sociopolítico; em seguida, será traçado pontos de identificação entre o Boosco Deleitoso e os autores e autoras da mística medieval. No segundo momento, a partir de um estudo sobre a mística sob o olhar da psicanálise, buscar-se-á fazer uma abordagem literária dos discursos místicos tendo em consideração as contribuições teóricas de Freud e Lacan sobre o assunto. O corpus desta pesquisa se encontra entre os capítulos 118 e 153 do Boosco Deleitoso, parcela da obra que perceptivelmente foi influenciada pela mística medieval / The mysticism in the Middle Age can be understood as a spirituality that confirms the legitimacy of the close experience of the human being with the deity and plays an important function in this historical period: to be a way to reach the direct and individual relation with God, at a moment where the religious institution searched the standardization of the faith, excising many practical heterodox (heresies). However, the mystique if imposes as a natural evolution of the Christian spirituality in medieval occidental person, who was submerged in the reason (theology), making possible to the individual a freer and sensible expression of the faith. The Boosco Deleitoso, classified for studious as a mystique, express workmanship this emotional condition of the faith. The objective of this study, therefore, is concentrated in observing the mystique in the referring Portuguese workmanship. For this, she was necessary to support this work in two foundations: history and the psychoanalysis. At the first moment, a study of the medieval spirituality and the evolution of the mystique in this sociopolitical environment will become; after that, it will be traced points of identification between the Boosco Deleitoso and the authors and authors of the medieval mystique. At as the moment, from a study on the mystique under the look of the psychoanalysis, one will search to make a literary boarding of the mystics speeches having in consideration the theoretical contributions of Freud and Lacan on the subject. The corpus of this research if finds between chapters 118 and 153 of the Boosco Deleitoso, parcel out of the workmanship that perceivably was influenced by the medieval mystique

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T19:20:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Maria Jose Caldeira do Amaral.pdf: 1451835 bytes, checksum: 2aa4903e28057e68929f47ff1fc1cb41 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-08-06 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The main objective of this research is the prospect of a deeper study on mysticism as a possibility for enlarging the knowledge in the symbolic and fundamental field of the Sciences of Religion. Our interest in researching the medieval records of Mechthild of Magdeburg, the flieBende Das Licht der Gottheit - object of this essay - is based on the feasibility of contributing to the debate on the human condition, emphasizing the inherent knowledge of the soul that loves God, disregarding her own self as consisted literally in the language of the text under study. Our hypothesis is that the movement extended over the established senses in concepts belonging to the religious context of western Christianity with reference to love, eros and agape, - as a key to reading -, sustains a possible understanding of love itself, from the development of a hermeneutic of the mystical language in focus. The loyalty to Mechthild of Magdeburg s records, written in vernacular language, the speculation of authors before and contemporary to her, and information of the religious medieval female authors, of the so called Frauenmyistic (female mysticism), formalized the development of our speculation around the mystique of love unfolded in the infusion of love as a deity. The Love of God, substantiated in the essence of the condition of the soul in distress by the inexorable search for that love, unfolds in the apex of love - concept formalized in the final construction of the research - as the best way of setting the dynamics between eros and agape available in the language of the flieBende Licht der Gottheit / O objetivo principal desta pesquisa está na perspectiva de um aprofundamento do estudo da mística como possibilidade de ampliação do conhecimento no campo simbólico e fundamental nas Ciências da Religião. Nosso interesse em pesquisar os registros medievais de Mechthild de Magdeburg, o Das flieBende Licht der Gottheit - objeto desse trabalho - reside na viabilidade em contribuir para o debate sobre a condição humana, enfatizando o saber inerente à alma que ama Deus, desfazendo-se de si mesma, constituída na linguagem literal do texto em estudo. Nossa hipótese é de que o movimento constelado entre os sentidos estabelecidos em conceitos próprios ao contexto religioso do cristianismo ocidental referentes ao amor, eros e ágape, - como chave de leitura -, sustenta uma possível compreensão do próprio amor, a partir do desenvolvimento de uma hermenêutica da linguagem mística em foco. A fidelidade aos registros de Mechthild de Magdeburg, escritos em língua vernacular, a especulação de autores anteriores e contemporâneos a ela e, as informações sobre as autoras medievais religiosas, da chamada Frauenmyistic (mística feminina), formalizaram o desenvolvimento de nossa especulação em torno da mística do amor desdobrada na infusão do amor deidade. O Amor de Deus, substanciado na essência da condição da alma em sofrimento pela procura inexorável desse amor, se desdobra no cúmulo do amor conceito formalizado na construção final da pesquisa - como a melhor possibilidade de configuração da dinâmica disponibilizada entre eros e agape na linguagem do Das flieBende Licht der Gottheit

This dissertation is presented in two parts. It first identifies the shape and content of an ancient system of Christian thought predicated on the theology of the cross of Jesus Christ, and proposes the marks typifying its theologians. Over against the ensuing hermeneutic it next finds the project of twentieth century Swiss theologian Karl Barth to exhibit many of the defining characteristics of this system, and Barth himself to be fairly deemed a modern theologian of the cross. He crucially recovers, reshapes and reasserts the classical theologia crucis as a modern theological instrument, one answering enlightened theology’s self-glorifying accommodation to modernity with the living Word of the cross. The crucicentric system itself is found to comprise two major theological dimensions, epistemological and soteriological. Each of these comprises dialectically corresponding aspects connected with false and true creaturely glory. The cruciform Word (or theology) speaking through this system likewise moves in two directions. It declares negatively that any attempt by the creature to circumvent the cross so as to know about God directly, or to condition God's electing decision, is necessarily the attempt to know and act as God alone may know and act - an attempt therefore on the glory of God. It declares positively that in the crucified Christ God formally discloses the knowledge of God, and determines the creature for God. This knowledge and election are appropriated to the creature as, drawn into the cruciform environment, its attempt to glorify itself is negated and Christ's exalted humanity received in exchange. Thence it is lifted to participate in Christ's mind and in his glory, a process guided by the Holy Spirit and completed eschatologically. The database for this research includes selected primary materials in the Apostle Paul, Athanasius, a group of medieval mystical theologians, the reformer Martin Luther - particularly here his Heidelberg Disputation, and Karl Barth. It also pays attention to the recent secondary literature peripherally or more concertedly connecting itself to the theology of the cross, of whatever period. In this literature numerous suggestions for the content of the theology of the cross exist, a major methodological task in the current research being to bring these together systematically. To the extent that the inner structure of the system carrying the cruciform Word has not previously been made explicit, and Barth's crucicentric status not finally determined, in moving towards these achievements this dissertation breaks fresh ground. In the process a new test by which to decide the crucicentric status of any theological project is developed, and a further and crucicentric way of reading Barth proposed. / This dissertation identifies the shape, content, and marks of the theology of the cross, an ancient and still extant epistemological and soteriological system of Christian thought. Applying the resulting hermeneutic it then shows this system to be present with renewed vitality and future significance in the modern project of seminal Swiss theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968).

This dissertation is presented in two parts. It first identifies the shape and content of an ancient system of Christian thought predicated on the theology of the cross of Jesus Christ, and proposes the marks typifying its theologians. Over against the ensuing hermeneutic it next finds the project of twentieth century Swiss theologian Karl Barth to exhibit many of the defining characteristics of this system, and Barth himself to be fairly deemed a modern theologian of the cross. He crucially recovers, reshapes and reasserts the classical theologia crucis as a modern theological instrument, one answering enlightened theology���s self-glorifying accommodation to modernity with the living Word of the cross. The crucicentric system itself is found to comprise two major theological dimensions, epistemological and soteriological. Each of these comprises dialectically corresponding aspects connected with false and true creaturely glory. The cruciform Word (or theology) speaking through this system likewise moves in two directions. It declares negatively that any attempt by the creature to circumvent the cross so as to know about God directly, or to condition God's electing decision, is necessarily the attempt to know and act as God alone may know and act - an attempt therefore on the glory of God. It declares positively that in the crucified Christ God formally discloses the knowledge of God, and determines the creature for God. This knowledge and election are appropriated to the creature as, drawn into the cruciform environment, its attempt to glorify itself is negated and Christ's exalted humanity received in exchange. Thence it is lifted to participate in Christ's mind and in his glory, a process guided by the Holy Spirit and completed eschatologically. The database for this research includes selected primary materials in the Apostle Paul, Athanasius, a group of medieval mystical theologians, the reformer Martin Luther - particularly here his Heidelberg Disputation, and Karl Barth. It also pays attention to the recent secondary literature peripherally or more concertedly connecting itself to the theology of the cross, of whatever period. In this literature numerous suggestions for the content of the theology of the cross exist, a major methodological task in the current research being to bring these together systematically. To the extent that the inner structure of the system carrying the cruciform Word has not previously been made explicit, and Barth's crucicentric status not finally determined, in moving towards these achievements this dissertation breaks fresh ground. In the process a new test by which to decide the crucicentric status of any theological project is developed, and a further and crucicentric way of reading Barth proposed.

This dissertation is presented in two parts. It first identifies the shape and content of an ancient system of Christian thought predicated on the theology of the cross of Jesus Christ, and proposes the marks typifying its theologians. Over against the ensuing hermeneutic it next finds the project of twentieth century Swiss theologian Karl Barth to exhibit many of the defining characteristics of this system, and Barth himself to be fairly deemed a modern theologian of the cross. He crucially recovers, reshapes and reasserts the classical theologia crucis as a modern theological instrument, one answering enlightened theology’s self-glorifying accommodation to modernity with the living Word of the cross. The crucicentric system itself is found to comprise two major theological dimensions, epistemological and soteriological. Each of these comprises dialectically corresponding aspects connected with false and true creaturely glory. The cruciform Word (or theology) speaking through this system likewise moves in two directions. It declares negatively that any attempt by the creature to circumvent the cross so as to know about God directly, or to condition God's electing decision, is necessarily the attempt to know and act as God alone may know and act - an attempt therefore on the glory of God. It declares positively that in the crucified Christ God formally discloses the knowledge of God, and determines the creature for God. This knowledge and election are appropriated to the creature as, drawn into the cruciform environment, its attempt to glorify itself is negated and Christ's exalted humanity received in exchange. Thence it is lifted to participate in Christ's mind and in his glory, a process guided by the Holy Spirit and completed eschatologically. The database for this research includes selected primary materials in the Apostle Paul, Athanasius, a group of medieval mystical theologians, the reformer Martin Luther - particularly here his Heidelberg Disputation, and Karl Barth. It also pays attention to the recent secondary literature peripherally or more concertedly connecting itself to the theology of the cross, of whatever period. In this literature numerous suggestions for the content of the theology of the cross exist, a major methodological task in the current research being to bring these together systematically. To the extent that the inner structure of the system carrying the cruciform Word has not previously been made explicit, and Barth's crucicentric status not finally determined, in moving towards these achievements this dissertation breaks fresh ground. In the process a new test by which to decide the crucicentric status of any theological project is developed, and a further and crucicentric way of reading Barth proposed. / This dissertation identifies the shape, content, and marks of the theology of the cross, an ancient and still extant epistemological and soteriological system of Christian thought. Applying the resulting hermeneutic it then shows this system to be present with renewed vitality and future significance in the modern project of seminal Swiss theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968).

This dissertation is presented in two parts. It first identifies the shape and content of an ancient system of Christian thought predicated on the theology of the cross of Jesus Christ, and proposes the marks typifying its theologians. Over against the ensuing hermeneutic it next finds the project of twentieth century Swiss theologian Karl Barth to exhibit many of the defining characteristics of this system, and Barth himself to be fairly deemed a modern theologian of the cross. He crucially recovers, reshapes and reasserts the classical theologia crucis as a modern theological instrument, one answering enlightened theology’s self-glorifying accommodation to modernity with the living Word of the cross. The crucicentric system itself is found to comprise two major theological dimensions, epistemological and soteriological. Each of these comprises dialectically corresponding aspects connected with false and true creaturely glory. The cruciform Word (or theology) speaking through this system likewise moves in two directions. It declares negatively that any attempt by the creature to circumvent the cross so as to know about God directly, or to condition God's electing decision, is necessarily the attempt to know and act as God alone may know and act - an attempt therefore on the glory of God. It declares positively that in the crucified Christ God formally discloses the knowledge of God, and determines the creature for God. This knowledge and election are appropriated to the creature as, drawn into the cruciform environment, its attempt to glorify itself is negated and Christ's exalted humanity received in exchange. Thence it is lifted to participate in Christ's mind and in his glory, a process guided by the Holy Spirit and completed eschatologically. The database for this research includes selected primary materials in the Apostle Paul, Athanasius, a group of medieval mystical theologians, the reformer Martin Luther - particularly here his Heidelberg Disputation, and Karl Barth. It also pays attention to the recent secondary literature peripherally or more concertedly connecting itself to the theology of the cross, of whatever period. In this literature numerous suggestions for the content of the theology of the cross exist, a major methodological task in the current research being to bring these together systematically. To the extent that the inner structure of the system carrying the cruciform Word has not previously been made explicit, and Barth's crucicentric status not finally determined, in moving towards these achievements this dissertation breaks fresh ground. In the process a new test by which to decide the crucicentric status of any theological project is developed, and a further and crucicentric way of reading Barth proposed. / This dissertation identifies the shape, content, and marks of the theology of the cross, an ancient and still extant epistemological and soteriological system of Christian thought. Applying the resulting hermeneutic it then shows this system to be present with renewed vitality and future significance in the modern project of seminal Swiss theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968).

This dissertation is presented in two parts. It first identifies the shape and content of an ancient system of Christian thought predicated on the theology of the cross of Jesus Christ, and proposes the marks typifying its theologians. Over against the ensuing hermeneutic it next finds the project of twentieth century Swiss theologian Karl Barth to exhibit many of the defining characteristics of this system, and Barth himself to be fairly deemed a modern theologian of the cross. He crucially recovers, reshapes and reasserts the classical theologia crucis as a modern theological instrument, one answering enlightened theology’s self-glorifying accommodation to modernity with the living Word of the cross. The crucicentric system itself is found to comprise two major theological dimensions, epistemological and soteriological. Each of these comprises dialectically corresponding aspects connected with false and true creaturely glory. The cruciform Word (or theology) speaking through this system likewise moves in two directions. It declares negatively that any attempt by the creature to circumvent the cross so as to know about God directly, or to condition God's electing decision, is necessarily the attempt to know and act as God alone may know and act - an attempt therefore on the glory of God. It declares positively that in the crucified Christ God formally discloses the knowledge of God, and determines the creature for God. This knowledge and election are appropriated to the creature as, drawn into the cruciform environment, its attempt to glorify itself is negated and Christ's exalted humanity received in exchange. Thence it is lifted to participate in Christ's mind and in his glory, a process guided by the Holy Spirit and completed eschatologically. The database for this research includes selected primary materials in the Apostle Paul, Athanasius, a group of medieval mystical theologians, the reformer Martin Luther - particularly here his Heidelberg Disputation, and Karl Barth. It also pays attention to the recent secondary literature peripherally or more concertedly connecting itself to the theology of the cross, of whatever period. In this literature numerous suggestions for the content of the theology of the cross exist, a major methodological task in the current research being to bring these together systematically. To the extent that the inner structure of the system carrying the cruciform Word has not previously been made explicit, and Barth's crucicentric status not finally determined, in moving towards these achievements this dissertation breaks fresh ground. In the process a new test by which to decide the crucicentric status of any theological project is developed, and a further and crucicentric way of reading Barth proposed. / This dissertation identifies the shape, content, and marks of the theology of the cross, an ancient and still extant epistemological and soteriological system of Christian thought. Applying the resulting hermeneutic it then shows this system to be present with renewed vitality and future significance in the modern project of seminal Swiss theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968).