Synopses & Reviews
While the modern world has largely dismissed the figure of the saint as a throwback, we remain fascinated by excess, marginality, transgression, and porous subjectivityandmdash;categories that define the saint. In this collection, Franandccedil;oise Meltzer and Jas Elsner bring together top scholars from across the humanities to reconsider our denial of saintliness and examine how modernity returns to the lure of saintly grace, energy, and charisma.Addressing such problems as how saints are made, the use of saints by political and secular orders, and how holiness is personified, Saints takes us on a photo tour of Graceland and the cult of Elvis and explores the changing political takes on Joan of Arc in France. It shows us the self-fashioning of culture through the reevaluation of saints in late-antique Judaism and Counter-Reformation Rome, and it questions the political intent of underlying claims to spiritual attainment of a Muslim sheikh in Morocco and of Sephardism in Israel. Populated with the likes of Francis of Assisi, Teresa of Avila, and Padre Pio, this book is a fascinating inquiry into the status of saints in the modern world.
Review
andldquo;Saints deserves attention, not only on account of the sophisticated content of most of the essays but also on account of the structure of the volume itself which provocatively defies scholarly convention by its andlsquo;inorganicism, the very indecorousness and janglingandrsquo; together of incongruous elements.andrdquo;
Review
and#8220;Overall, the collected contributions in
Saints: Faith without Borders showcase both the wide range of approaches that can be brought to bear on the and#8216;saintand#8217; and the myriad of circumstances where sainthood and sanctity occur. This volume provides a welcome opportunity to take the term and#8216;saintand#8217; on the broadest possible level.
Saints: Faith without Borders is an intellectual experiment that results in a delightful conflux of theory and application, yesterday and today, saints and sanctity.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;This intelligently edited, consistently engaging volume collects eighteen essays from scholars in a variety of fieldsand#8212;theology, history of religions, philosophy, art history, comparative literature, etc.and#8212;dealing with saints and sainthood in their multifarious forms. . . . This volume is highly recommended not only for those interested in the category of the saint but also for scholars investigating the fraught relationship between religion and modernity.and#8221;
About the Author
Franand#231;oise Meltzer is the Edward Carson Waller Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, where she is also professor at the Divinity School and in the College, and chair of the Department of Comparative Literature. Meltzer is the author of five books, most recently of Seeing Double: Baudelaireand#8217;s Modernity, and a coeditor of the journal Critical Inquiry.Jas Elsner is Humfry Payne Senior Research Fellow in Classical Art at Corpus Christi College, Oxford University, and visiting professor of art history at the University of Chicago.and#160;Elsnerandrsquo;s most recent solo-authored book is Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text.
Table of Contents
Introduction
by Franand#231;oise Meltzer and Jaand#347; Elsner
From Cuba with Saints
by Marc Blanchard
St. Elvis
by Lawrence Jasud
Reviving the Fairy Tree: Tales of European Sanctity
by Franand#231;oise Meltzer
Transgressing the Self: Making Charismatic Saints
by Simon Coleman
On Naming Saints
by David Tracy
Patron Saint of the Incongruous: Rabbi Meand#8217;andlt;hamzaandgt;ir, the Talmud, and Menippean Satire
by Daniel Boyarin
Thinking with Saints: Sanctity and Society in the Early Modern World
by Simon Ditchfield
St. Dymphna and the Lunatics: The Advent of Moral Community Psychiatry
by Bernard Rubin
On the Politics of Sainthood: Resistance and Mimicry in Postcolonial Morocco
by Malika Zeghal
The Enchantment of Judaism: Israeli Anxieties and Puzzles
by Aviad Kleinberg
Persuading the Absent Saint: Image and Performance in Marian Devotion
by Robert Maniura
Miracles of Bodily Transformation, or How St. Francis Received the Stigmata
by Arnold I. Davidson
Re-Presenting a Contemporary Saint: Padre Pio of Pietrelcina
by Michael A. Di Giovine
Saint Teresa of Avila
by Julia Kristeva
and#160;and#160;translated by Anne Marsella
and#8216;Lycidasand#8217;: A Wolf in Saintand#8217;s Clothing
by Neil Forsyth
The Invisibility of the Saint
by Jean-Luc Marion
Beyond Compare: Pagan Saint and Christian God in Late Antiquity
by Jaand#347; Elsner
Apophthegmata
by Aviad Kleinberg
Index