Co-sponsored by the University of Chicago Divinity School. For more information, contact dstrobach@lumenchristi.org.
This event will be a symposium on Rachel Smith’s (Villanova University) book, Excessive Saints: Gender, Narrative, and Theological Invention in Thomas of Cantimpré’s Mystical Hagiographies. Rachel Smith will outline the major themes of her work. Then, Willemien Otten (Dorothy Grant Maclear Professor of Theology and the History of Christianity at the University of Chicago) and Barbara Newman (John Evans Professor of Latin; Professor of English, Classics, and History at Northwestern University) will respond.
How does the gendering of images work to render Thomas of Cantimpré’s portraits of holy women vivid, compelling, desirable? How is gender undone in his hagiographies, its expectations countered? How does gendering the saint work together with other elements of Thomas’s theology of sanctity? How is the hagiographer gendered in relation to the saint? In what ways might we see the limits of gender as a category of analysis in Thomas’s hagiographical works? How does gendering work in the context of vitae that use apophatic strategies to compose their saintly subjects?