Upcoming Publication

For those who might be interested, my latest article, “The Wise Man has Two Tongues: Images of The Satyr and the Peasant by Jordaens and Steen,” will appear in Myth in History, History in Myth, volume 182 in Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History series.  It is due out in August of 2009.

Here’s the article abstract:

“In the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Aesop’s Fables had widespread appeal in Netherlandish culture. In particular, we find many examples of the “Fable of the Satyr and the Peasant”. In the story a wary satyr rejects the perceived hypocrisy of the peasant, “blowing hot or cold” as the situation dictates—once to warm his cold hands, and again to cool his porridge.

The Flemish artist Jacob Jordaens’ name is most synonymous with representations of the theme, for, by one count, he created a dozen versions of the story in various media.  It was one of his most repeated, most popular subjects.

It is often noted that Jordaens’ images of “As the Old Sing, So Pipe the Young” and “Twelfth Night” served as models for the Dutch artist Jan Steen.  It remains under-stated, however, that Steen also painted the Satyr and the Peasant fable several times in apparent emulation of Jordaens.

In this paper, I discuss the timing and execution of Steen’s paintings as evidence of competition with the older, more famous Antwerp artist. And, I ponder what the combination of Classical mythology and genre—a marriage of elite and popular culture—reveals about correspondances between Northern and Southern Netherlandish humanism.

The answers reveal much about the cross-fertilization between these two artists, and how they used mythology to explore the similarities and differences between their respective Netherlandish cultures and identities.”

And, here’s the book synopsis from the publisher:

“In 1975, a group of Dutch and British scholars published a conference volume of collected essays entitled Some Political Mythologies. That conference sought to examine the political myth as an object of historical study, particularly in the context of the tumultuous and exceptional history of the Low Countries. Thirty years later, a more diverse group of scholars gathered to re-examine the history of Dutch myth-making in light of developments in theoretical and methodological approaches to understanding the role of myths in national identity, moral geography, and community formation. The results of their efforts appear in this volume, Myth in History: History in Myth. The essays cover developments in history, anthropology, cartography, philosophy, art history, and literature as they pertain to how the Dutch historically perceived these myths and how the myths have been treated by previous generations of historians.”

“The Prince” and Pandora’s Box

“The Prince” and Pandora’s Box

As I watched the second presidential debate, I turned to my husband and said, “This may not sound appropriate in a democratic republic—but when Barack Obama sits on that stool don’t you think he looks like an Eastern Prince?  You know?  The kind shown in Buddhist images of figures in the lalitasana, the ‘pose of royal ease’?  Look at how peaceful and serene his face looks.”  

Now some folks who are already whipped into a xenophobic frenzy about Obama being “too foreign” and “too exotic” for America would OF COURSE take that kind of a remark as an unforgivable lapse in judgment from an elitist East Coast academic such as myself.  To them, I can’t really offer an excuse, nor an apology.  A peaceful, relaxed figure exuding intellect, confidence and poise is something I desire in a world leader. ‘Nuff said.

But, it only occurred to me later—in re-reading Stephen Greenblatt’s Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1980) this week—that McCain, too, reminds me of a prince.  Machiavelli’s prince.

Last week’s dismal news that the McCain-Palin ticket began encouraging race-driven insults and worse from their socially and economically panic-stricken audiences forced me to realize that the Republicans are not beneath any scorched-earth tactic (ahem, strategy) to help them gain the White House. They found loads of company on the low road, and discovered it makes for easy travel.  This was as true in Renaissance Italy as it is today.

As Greenblatt points out, “For Machiavelli, the prince engages in deceptions for one very clear reason: to survive.  The successful prince must be ‘a great feigner and dissembler; and men are so simple and so ready to obey present necessities, that one who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived.’…The initiated observer can always see beneath the surface and understand how appearances are manipulated by the cunning prince.”1  As Machiavelli explains it, it is in politics as it is in nature, the fox always eats the hens; yet, the sheer willingness of the victims still inspires outrage among the socially-responsible in society.2

In response to the troubling development in the Republican campaign, Georgia Democratic representative John Lewis publicly issued a condemning statement likening McCain and Palin’s tactics to George Wallace’s segregationist vitriol.  ”What I am seeing reminds me too much of another destructive period in American history. Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse,” wrote Lewis.  McCain’s response was to voice disappointment in his one-time hero for stifling the national political conversation with his accusations.

I have to ask: If we are routinely asked to praise John McCain for his veteran-of-foreign-war status, should we not also exult  John Lewis for his service in another kind of war?  Did Lewis not also suffer physical and mental anguish in the service of ensuring American freedom and liberty?  Unlike McCain, Lewis suffered at the hands of fellow Americans instead of foreign armies, having his skull fractured by police in the “Bloody Sunday” March on Selma, Alabama.  But, I believe that a hero like Lewis deserves every bit as much respect for his exceptional, patriotic experiences.  And, I also trust that he knows racist rhetoric when he sees it, and that he does not wield his opinion on the subject lightly.

For now—after the outright public disgust and outrage with the tactics of McCain and Palin—they have reined-in their poisonous rhetoric out on the campaign trail.  But, it’s incredibly frightening to imagine that they’ve already opened a post-modern Pandora’s Box, that they’ve loosed rapacious greed, envy, vanity, slander, and lying into the midst of our revered political process.

The optimistic news is that—in the original myth—a once-curious, now terrified Pandora slammed the lid closed before “hope” could escape, which would have left mankind utterly inconsolate.

Ah, HOPE.  Thank heaven for it.  And, thank heaven we have another campaign inextricably linked with that very same saving grace.

————

1. Greenblatt, 14.  Machiavelli quotation, The Prince (NY: Modern Library, 1950), 64-65.

2. Greenblatt, 259, n. 3.

Abba and Amen

Abba and Amen

I’ve been reading the book Myths of Religion by Andrew M. Greeley this week. It is a compendium of three of his books written in the Seventies, The Jesus Myth, The Sinai Myth and The Mary Myth.

I’m intrigued by Greeley’s definition of myth, one that diverges from Joseph Campbell’s insofar as Greeley sees myth as important in its content, rather than its structure. For Greeley, therefore, myths are not all basically the same regardless of culture, as Campbell contends. For Greeley myth is “not fairy tale or legend, not make-believe or fiction, but rather a story that points beyond itself and gives meaning, purpose and direction to life.”1 Greeley’s project is to investigate the Christian myth.

In The Jesus Myth Greeley (a Catholic priest, sociologist and author) makes perceptive and challenging assertions about the message of Christ, especially in regard to our increasing knowledge of his historical life. Unlike fundamentalists, Greeley is not threatened by Biblical History scholarship, rather he embraces it as a venue for deepening his faith. His steadfast assurance in his own faith cannot be shaken, and therefore he walks in the world without fear.

For Greeley it is not even particularly important to focus on whether or not Christ himself articulated his role as Messiah, but rather that we understand Christ’s original and difficult message—perhaps best summed up with two words: Abba and Amen.

The “Abba and Amen” concept originates in the writing of the German scholar, Joachim Jeremias.2 For Jeremias, Jesus’ difficult message was twofold. First, we are all God’s own beloved children, on intimate enough terms to address him as “daddy” (Abba). And, secondly, as Christ was God’s earthly incarnation, he preached on his own authority, and was thereby able to seal his words with “Amen.” Understand these, and all else will follow.

Greeley convincingly argues that much of Christianity has unfortunately fallen into the same snare that Christ’s culture of first-century Judaism had. Now, as then, believers are far more comfortable with defining and enforcing laws, litigation and rules/ethics for daily living rather than actually hearing Christ’s revolutionary call to hope, faith and love/charity in all thought and action. (In essence, I Corinthians 13:13; “But now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”) By demanding that people live these three, Christ ushers in the Kingdom of Heaven: not as a future state of being, but brought to fruition in the here and now.

Greeley believes that while an ethical (perhaps secular) life is laudable, if it denies any future beyond death, it fails to feed the soul’s universal, intrinsic need for hope in permanence. For Greeley the answer is Christianity. Christian faith proves the individual’s assurance of God’s presence in all facets of space and time. Christian hope is faith’s extension; it means that life is meaningful, joyful and ceaseless—an affirmation of divine omnipotence, symbolized by the Resurrection. Christian love is the earthly witness of God’s love; every act of love/charity is a recollection and extension of the “insanely generous” gift of divine love and forgiveness of transgressions.

The greatest of these is love because it is both God’s greatest gift and his greatest challenge to us. Christians are called to live all three every day and in every place, regardless of life’s whims or our neighbors’ reactions. Christians are to joyfully invite each and every one to the liberating celebration of living boundless love, what Christ termed the “Wedding Banquet.”

Hating the sin, but loving the sinner; finding the beam in our own eye; seeing the divine in the here and now; approaching the Kingdom as little children; these are difficult to follow, but in not following them, we fare even worse.
——
1. Greeley, Myths of Religion (NY: Warner Books, 1989), 1.
2. Jeremias, The Lord’s Prayer, trans. John Reumann, Facet Books Biblical Series—8 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1964); Jeremias, The Central Message of the New Testament (NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1965). Cited in Greeley, 71.

Venus was a Nun

Venus was a Nun: and Other Things Your Mother Never Told You

Though my post‘s title may sound like a Monty Python quip, it derives from a real phenomenon, that of syncretism. Syncretism is the reconciliation of disparate or contradictory beliefs, a term first coined by Plutarch (“Fraternal Love,” Moralia [2.490b], 1st c. AD).  It regularly occurs in visual, literary and philosophical arenas as a means to unite in difference; it is a means to forge powerful compromise in cosmopolitan cultures.

On this subject, back in 1953 W.S. Heckscher published “Aphrodite as a Nun,” an interesting article written in the heyday of the faddish pursuit of tracing the Afterlife of Antiquity down through the Ages.1  Heckscher’s project charts the direct lineage of Cesare Ripa’s emblem of PVDICITIA (Chastity) from its unlikely antique roots in Venus iconography; he begins with the ancient authors Pausanias and Plutarch, continues with the Italian humanist Alciati, et al, and ends with the fertile imagination of Ripa – “the encyclopaedist of emblem makers.” The resultant chaste goddess of love thus epitomizes the cleverly described “strange unity in disparity” that characterized much of the Baroque period in Europe.2

In the headlining example, we can see how two virtually opposing ideas can circuitously be combined into a hybrid symbol.  If Antique ideas could be morphed so completely by the time of their absorption during the Renaissance and Baroque, just imagine how changed some of our ideas of the past have become today, another five centuries later.

Take, for example, the mistaken idea that the three great Monotheistic traditions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) have nothing in common, that they are singular and irreconcilable.  In fact, as Karen Armstrong demonstrates in A History of God: the 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam (NY: A. A. Knopf, 1993), each of these religions share parts of their history, scripture, and modes of religious experience.  These Abrahamic religions, as revealed religions, have much to share with each other about how to find divinity within each individual and how to build a community of respect.  That is, if we would take the time to familiarize ourselves with our own storied, received traditions rather than simply reading contemporary, often fundamentalist gloss. In doing so, we might recognize their intersections rather than their divisions.

It will be interesting, following the Olympics and the national election this year, to see how the popular rapport between the Middle East, Far East and West will continue to stir our imagination and perhaps syncretize our cultures over the next few years.  I have great hope it will show us how similar we all are in our humanity, especially as natural and manmade tragedies loom large in the collective consciousness.

For, when faced with great tribulation—as Erasmus of Rotterdam put it—“Concord is a mighty rampart.”

——–

1. W.S. Heckscher, “Aphrodite as a Nun,” Phoenix 7, no. 3 (Autumn 1953), 105-117.

2. Ibid., 105.