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Religions in Ritual, Spectacle, and Drama in the Medieval &...
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Religions in Ritual, Spectacle, and Drama in the Medieval & Early Modern World

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 December 2023) | Viewed by 6169

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Kristin M.S. Bezio

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Jepson School of Leadership Studies, University of Richmond, Richmond, VA 23173, USA
Interests: Early Modern Drama; spycraft; religious history; leadership studies; game studies
Dr. Samantha Dressel

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of English, Chapman University, Orange, CA 92866, USA
Interests: Early Modern Drama; revenge tragedy; trauma studies; gender theory

Special Issue Information

Religions in Ritual, Spectacle, and Drama in the Medieval & Early Modern World focuses specifically on the religious under- and over-pinnings of spectacle, ritual, and drama (in any and all senses of the terms) throughout the medieval and early modern world. In particular, the issue highlights the ways in which spectacle enacts religion and religion enacts spectacle; whether a secular play or a holy celebration, the use of spectacle, drama, and ritual participates in the reification, codification, and/or subversion of cultural assumptions and practices. This Special Issue specifically demonstrates how spectacle and ritual—of both the sacred and secular varieties—interact with varying religious cultures across the global medieval and early modern world. The essays contained in this issue address how spectacle and ritual helped to reinforce or undermine expected religious belief and practice, as well as how they either discouraged or reinforced religious pluralism and toleration as beliefs and cultures came into contact with one another’s cultural traditions.

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to invite you to contribute an essay that pertains, broadly speaking, to the ideas of spectacle, ritual, and drama as they relate to questions or practice of religion. Spectacle is at the heart of both ritual and drama, and religion is often similarly to be found at the core of both. Whether a spectacle is tied to ritualized praxis, to celebration or mourning, or to the production of a dramatic performance, elements of religious culture are often foregrounded, particularly in the medieval and early modern world. We are particularly interested in essays that include global, non-white (or not only white), and non-Anglocentric (or not only Anglocentric) perspectives.

This Special Issue aims to showcase essays that discuss the impact and depictions of religious belief and conflict in public ritual and drama throughout the medieval and early modern periods. Specifically, the issue seeks essays that cross multiple boundaries, whether religious, cultural, social, or geographical in terms of their depictions of public spectacle, whether religious, dramatic, or both. Essays in this volume should also consider the importance of their argument’s focus on larger questions of inclusion, equity, and diversity, either within the period or relative to more contemporary discussions, whether in the classroom or in the wider world.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following: religious studies, theology, literature and drama, history, art history, musicology, archeology, or another relevant field. We ask for articles that focus on the middle ages through to the early modern period (understood as flexible based on the region(s) under consideration) and specifically pertain to the focal topic of the Special Issue (religions in ritual, spectacle, and drama).

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Kristin M.S. Bezio
Dr. Samantha Dressel
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • religion
  • drama
  • spectacle
  • ritual
  • religious conflict
  • religious toleration
  • religious pluralism

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

11 pages, 233 KiB  
Article
Killjoy? Augustine on Pageantry
by Peter Iver Kaufman
Religions 2024, 15(3), 348; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15030348 - 13 Mar 2024
Viewed by 608
Abstract
Augustine’s position on civic spectacles should be evaluated in connection with his fears about a resurgence of paganism in late Roman North Africa. Notwithstanding contemporary claims that those fears were cover for early fifth-century prelatical efforts to manage commercial and political culture, evidence [...] Read more.
Augustine’s position on civic spectacles should be evaluated in connection with his fears about a resurgence of paganism in late Roman North Africa. Notwithstanding contemporary claims that those fears were cover for early fifth-century prelatical efforts to manage commercial and political culture, evidence suggests that paganism in North Africa survived and was seductive. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religions in Ritual, Spectacle, and Drama in the Medieval & Early Modern World)
19 pages, 250 KiB  
Article
King Lear and the Ethics of Brutal, Caring Faith
by Tommy Pfannkoch
Religions 2024, 15(2), 173; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15020173 - 30 Jan 2024
Viewed by 862
Abstract
This essay engages with King Lear to perform an ethical meditation. The essay finds within the play an ethic resembling the ethics of care: health and flourishing are present not merely in individual human beings but in bonds between human beings. King Lear [...] Read more.
This essay engages with King Lear to perform an ethical meditation. The essay finds within the play an ethic resembling the ethics of care: health and flourishing are present not merely in individual human beings but in bonds between human beings. King Lear sets this ethic within a context characterized by finality and human finitude and frailty. Human beings must act within a ripe moment, without being able to consider every contingency and possibility; these acts can (and probably do) affect the wellbeing of those around the actor; and once these acts are completed, they are irrevocable. King Lear sets this state of affairs against a backdrop of indifferent, intractable realms of nature, the divine, and politics. Nevertheless, the essay finds in King Lear the possibility that human beings will grant one another the gift of dignity—even within all that is bleak, contingent, and absurd—a possibility that is ultimately grounded in faith. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religions in Ritual, Spectacle, and Drama in the Medieval & Early Modern World)
20 pages, 266 KiB  
Article
“But Now I Consydre Thy Necesse”: Augustine’s Doctrine of Jewish Witness and the Restoration of Racial Hierarchies in the Croxton Play of the Sacrament
by Ella Schalski
Religions 2024, 15(1), 140; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15010140 - 22 Jan 2024
Viewed by 961
Abstract
This paper examines the depiction of Jewish and Christian merchants in the medieval English Host miracle play, the Croxton Play of the Sacrament. This play is a critical illustration of religious racialization, effectively demonstrating the perpetuation of anti-Jewish stereotypes and legitimizing violence. [...] Read more.
This paper examines the depiction of Jewish and Christian merchants in the medieval English Host miracle play, the Croxton Play of the Sacrament. This play is a critical illustration of religious racialization, effectively demonstrating the perpetuation of anti-Jewish stereotypes and legitimizing violence. Positioned within a broader scholarly debate, particularly in relation to Augustine’s doctrine of Jewish witness, the play portrays Jews as allegorical figures that validate Christian theological constructs. This paper delves into the representation and linguistic depiction of Jewish characters in the play, emphasizing their systematic dehumanization and instrumentalization in Christian narratives. A significant focus is placed on the coerced conversion of Jewish characters, which forces them into the archetype of the “Wandering Jew”, thereby highlighting motifs of symbolic aggression and unending diaspora. This paper also confronts contemporary scholarly perspectives that view the play as challenging religious boundaries, positing that such interpretations overlook the ingrained racialization and marginalization of Jewish identity during the European Middle Ages. It argues that the play’s transient disruption of power dynamics ultimately reinforces prevailing social hierarchies, thereby solidifying deep-seated anti-Jewish sentiments. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religions in Ritual, Spectacle, and Drama in the Medieval & Early Modern World)
12 pages, 199 KiB  
Article
“O Piteous Spectacle! O Bloody Times!”: The Faithlessness of English Identity in 1, 2, and 3 Henry VI
by Matthew Carter
Religions 2024, 15(1), 13; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15010013 (registering DOI) - 21 Dec 2023
Viewed by 934
Abstract
Shakespeare’s Henry VI trilogy is jam-packed with spectacle: heads are severed and made to kiss, women dress as men and lead armies, ghosts predict the future, and a plethora of miracles take place all over the various locales we visit across fifteen acts. [...] Read more.
Shakespeare’s Henry VI trilogy is jam-packed with spectacle: heads are severed and made to kiss, women dress as men and lead armies, ghosts predict the future, and a plethora of miracles take place all over the various locales we visit across fifteen acts. In fact, if “faith is… the evidence of things not seen,” as asserted by the author of Hebrews, then the Henry VI plays are entirely devoid of faith, by the merit of bringing miraculous events from the realm of faith into the realm of observational knowledge. Of note, then, is the fact that the trilogy depicts Henry as a weak king whose main virtue is his commitment to his faith. Compared to other kings in Shakespearean history plays, Henry is almost-constantly referencing the spiritual world, and the world he lives in is so full of miraculous happenings that miracles themselves run the risk of becoming banal. Perhaps surprisingly, given the trilogy’s thematic investment in miracles and spirituality, the English are defined in the plays as destroying or debunking miraculous spectacles. From Gloucester outsmarting Simpcox in his feigned healing to the putting-down of two witches (Joan in 1 Henry VI and Margery Jourdain in 2 Henry VI), it seems that, despite Henry’s incredible devotion, his courtiers raise skepticism to the level of modus operandi. In this essay, I hope to examine the way that the second Henriad depicts a version of England that places logic and skepticism in the seat of faith, while its ruler’s faith is often both uninterrogated and misplaced. Shakespeare stages a teleology of spectacle that highlights English faithlessness as a source of internecine struggle and insurrection, while also cautioning against naivete in the face of canny nemeses. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religions in Ritual, Spectacle, and Drama in the Medieval & Early Modern World)
19 pages, 5966 KiB  
Article
“But Angels Don’t Have Wings”: Art, Religion, and Michelangelo’s Last Judgment in Gilio’s Dialogue on the Errors and Abuses of Painters
by Anthony Presti Russell
Religions 2023, 14(12), 1486; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14121486 - 29 Nov 2023
Viewed by 1244
Abstract
This article provides a close reading of Giovanni Andrea Gilio’s critique of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment as presented in the Dialogue on the Errors and Abuses of Painters (1564). The dialogue has generally been taken as reflecting the emerging Counter-Reformation concerns regarding the indecorousness [...] Read more.
This article provides a close reading of Giovanni Andrea Gilio’s critique of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment as presented in the Dialogue on the Errors and Abuses of Painters (1564). The dialogue has generally been taken as reflecting the emerging Counter-Reformation concerns regarding the indecorousness of contemporary religious art, concerns that led to the censoring of the Last Judgment’s nudes in 1564 after the Council of Trent’s decree on sacred images. One frequent justification for ecclesiastical oversight over the production of religious art was that artists such as Michelangelo had prioritized their art over its religious contents and devotional aims. Though Gilio’s work has been read as confirming this view, this essay argues that the various opinions expressed during the animated exchanges in the dialogue yield a set of nuanced and often innovative interpretations of the Last Judgment that resist a reductive dichotomy between art and religion. Whether intentionally or not, the dialogue conveys that by the time of Michelangelo, and perhaps because of Michelangelo, the forms of art and the contents of religion could not be so easily distinguished from each other, largely because the artist’s subjectivity blurred the boundaries between the two. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religions in Ritual, Spectacle, and Drama in the Medieval & Early Modern World)
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17 pages, 866 KiB  
Article
Ritualized Affective Performances: Syriac Etiquette Guides and Systems Intelligence in Early Christian–Muslim Encounters
by Luis Josué Salés
Religions 2023, 14(11), 1423; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14111423 - 14 Nov 2023
Viewed by 852
Abstract
In 2009, Michael Penn published a transcription and English translation of two Syriac texts, To the Rulers of the World (ܠܘܬ ܪ̈ܝܫܢܐ ܕܥܠܡܐ) and Concerning the Entrance before a New Emir (ܕܡܥܠܬܐ ܨܝܕ ܐܡܝܪܐ ܚܕܬܐ). This essay proposes a new historiographical approach to [...] Read more.
In 2009, Michael Penn published a transcription and English translation of two Syriac texts, To the Rulers of the World (ܠܘܬ ܪ̈ܝܫܢܐ ܕܥܠܡܐ) and Concerning the Entrance before a New Emir (ܕܡܥܠܬܐ ܨܝܕ ܐܡܝܪܐ ܚܕܬܐ). This essay proposes a new historiographical approach to these texts based on the concepts and theoretical apparatus of systems intelligence theory and affect theory. I show how these texts use key Islamic theological and cultural ideas that would affectively resonate with the Muslim authorities while remaining non-objectionable to the orthodoxy of the Assyrian Church of the East. Specifically, I argue that Christians sometimes sought to curry favor with Islamic authorities not so much through logical persuasion, but by creating a sense of affective coherence through attunement to the discursive and theological systems of Islam. Through this strategy, Christians perhaps hoped to gain some small measure of political and religious advantage, especially over and against other Christian jurisdictions, such as the Syrian Orthodox Church. I conclude by discussing what methodological prospects these approaches can offer to the subfield, particularly if combined with other theories that similarly remain underused. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religions in Ritual, Spectacle, and Drama in the Medieval & Early Modern World)
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