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Understandings of The World, Matter, & Relations Between the Human and Non-Human in Medieval and Post-Modern Literature
The Fall Medieval Christian society understood the Fall as an upheaval of God’s intended design for creation as it brought about a reconfiguration of humans’ relationship to their surroundings, creating a world in which humans now needed to kill animals for food and clothing. The Fall was also understood as… Continue reading
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Augustine, Genesis 1 and 2, & Female Subordination
In ‘The Literal Meaning of Genesis’ Augustine of Hippo (354 AD – 430 AD) comments on the creation accounts of Genesis 1 and 2 to form judgements on the nature of biblical manhood and womanhood and to develop ideas about the body and human sexuality, focusing particularly on the distinction… Continue reading
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The Impact of the Idolatry of Marriage on Female Relationships Within the Church
There’s a chapter in Little Women where the March sisters join Laurie and Laurie’s English friends for a day at the beach. Alcott describes a scene where Kate Vaughn, the haughtiest of Laurie’s friends and the one closest in age to Meg, intentionally insults Meg because she’s noticed that Meg… Continue reading
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When Biblical Modesty isn’t Biblical: A Critique of the Evangelical Understanding of the Issue of Women’s Modesty
In the opening chapter of his treatise on modesty titled On the Apparel of Women, Tertullian (c. 160AD – 125) famously described women as “the devil’s gateway” and if you were to look through my journal entries about my own body between twenty-one and twenty-three, written during my first eighteen… Continue reading
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On Studying English Literature
Sometimes I wonder what people think English Literature as a discipline is. Not that I really need to wonder — people are usually very liberal in their communication of what they think it is you do, will go on to do, and the kind of person you are for having… Continue reading
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Art, Literature, and Christian Anti-Intellectualism
Outside of the snobbery of what constitutes a ‘real’ academic discipline, some Christians are skeptical about the arts (the literary and performing arts in particular) believing them to be secularised spaces that represent only the proliferation of anti-biblical worldviews. They therefore scoff at the futility of mind of those who… Continue reading
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Titanic and Female Christian Thought
By the time we see Rose DeWitt Bukater having (very much having and not enjoying) her first meal on the Titanic, the cynicism revealed in her opening comments about the ship and in her attitude towards her mother and fiancé’s high society affectations has solidified into total disillusionment. When Bruce… Continue reading
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‘Of Envy’ in Christian Womanhood
I recently revisited some of the Francis Bacon essays that were assigned as reading in the first year of my literature degree and was having a grand old time enjoying the transhistoricity of Bacon’s thoughts until I got to a line in ‘Of Envy’ that made my heart drop to… Continue reading