En Mager Helgenindes Magt
Kvindelig mystik i middelalderen og feministiske genfortolkninger
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2654556 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Judith Asher |
| Year | 1998 |
| Issue | 39 |
| Publication date | 1998-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Tidsskriftet Antropologi (BOOK_SERIES) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0906-3021 • E-ISSN: 2596-5425 |
| Publisher | Det Kgl. Bibliotek/Royal Danish Library (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.7146/ta.v0i39.115174 |
| OpenAlex | W3197162031 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 12 |
Judith Asher: The Power of a Skinny Saint: Fasting Practices of Medieval Female Mystics and Feminist Rereadings In connection to the current Western ideal of a thin and disciplined female body, historical 252 evidence has been sought of eating disorders among women prior to medical diagnoses of anorexia nervosa and bulimia. One of the first well-documented instances of such food-related body denial in Western history is European medieval women saints, who in the standard church hagiography have been revered for the 'miracle' of surviving on a negligible intake of food, inedia miraculosa. This relatively marginal phenomenon has come to receive surprisingly broad attention; the 'holy anorexics' are now a standard reference both in feminist scholarship and in popular women's literature. Contemporary feminist interpretations of these saints tend to encounter a fundamental ambiguity: whether to pronounce the women mystics victims of oppression or agents of liberation. This article describes the self-imposed starvation regime of medieval mystics with reference to the idioms of eating and feeding that informed their socio-historical context. It then goes on to outline the interpretive ambiguity current among feminist rereadings and propose that this uncertainty points to the inherently contradictory nature of broad-based social gender definitions
Art · Context (archaeology · Interpretation (philosophy · Literature · Mysticism · Oppression · Political science · Power (physics · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Culinary Culture and Tourism · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · Gender Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Religious studies
Becoming visible
The Female body in western culture
Saints and Society
Medieval Misogyny and the Invention of Western Romantic Love
Self and Suffering
This Is My Body”
A Medieval Lesson on Bodily Knowing
Interpreting Anorexia Nervosa
An essay in the history of a medieval ideal
Religion and Sexism
The Contours of Female Piety in Later Medieval Hagiography
Fast, Feast, and Flesh
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |