Gender and Divinity in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Late Antiquity-Middle Ages).

Professor: Alexandra Cuffel

Office: Old Main 308

Office Hours: MWF 2:00-3:00

Phone: 696-6414

e-mail: cuffel@macalester.edu

website: http://www.macalester.edu/~cuffel/

 

 Within certain forms/branches of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam male and female became metaphorical categories for talking about the divine.  This course will give students the opportunity to read the relevant primary sources, explore these texts to one another and the historical milieu in which they were produced.  Readings include selections from the Nag Hammadi library, apocryphal Christian writings, Sefer ha-Bahir,  the Zohar, and biographies of Sufis.  Students will also become familiar with classical and medieval biological theories about sexual differentiation as part of the background for approaching these religious texts.  Students taking this course must have a basic familiarity the three religious traditions being studied.

 

Requirements for the course:

1) Class contribution: 20%

(Class contribution includes active, oral discussions of the readings plus turning in a set of questions/issues which you would like discussthe day before each class and/or participating in discussions with the professor and other students via the Moodle list serve.  You must either turn in questions and thoughts by hand or via e-mail or Moodle at least once a week to get credit.  You should ALWAYS  be prepared for and participate in class discussion.  You grade is based not merely on the quantity of your participation but on its quality.)

 

2) Book review: 15%

(Deadlines for the book reviews will depend upon the book you choose.  See book list with the accompanying due dates plus guidelines for a good book review on my website.)

 

3) Proposal and bibliography: 15% - Due Feb 28

(The proposal consists of a 1-2 page explanation of your thesis and proposed project for your research paper which should be accompanied by an extensive bibliography for your research paper.  The bibliography must be divided into primary and secondary sources and contain articles as well as books.)

 

4) Analytic paper focusing on one of the primary sources for your research paper: 20%- Due March 16

(You should select one or two of the primary sources that you will be using for your research paper, and analyze it/them.  A good paper will have a thesis, and will make good use of the source(s) to prove your point.  You many incorporate parts of this paper into your research paper.)

 

5) Research paper: 30% - Due April 6.

 

 

 

Books required for class:

 

1) The Other Bible [ Marked (O) in the syllabus]

2) Caroline Walker Bynum, Jesus as Mother

3) Mechthild of Magdeburg, The Flowing Light of the Godhead

4) Holy Women of the Syrian Orient

5) Zohar, The Book of Enlightenment

6) Letters of Adam of Perseigne

7) Camille Adams Helminski,(ed.) Women of Sufism: A Hidden Treasure

 

 Additional required, on-line readings will be marked @.  You may link to these by going to the on-line version of this syllabus and clicking on the connection within the syllabus.

 

 

Mon. Jan. 24: Introduction to the course.  What is gender?  What is divinity?  In what ways might these two relate?  Why pick Judaism, Christianity, and Islam?

Readings for next class: @Song of Songs; @Is. 46:3-4; 42:14ff; @Galatians 3; @Genesis 1-3.

 

Wed. Jan. 26: Discussion of texts.

Readings for next class: @Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, “The Problem of the Body for the People of the Book”; @ Chapter 1 of Peter Brown, Body and Society.

Fri. Jan. 28: Discussion of texts. Lecture: Introduction to Pagans, Jews, and Christians, and Muslims in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages.  Brief introduction to the medical concepts of male and female in the ancient world.

Readings for next class  @ Selections from Aristotle    @Selections from Galen

 

 

Mon. Jan. 31: Continued lecture/discussion of Greek medical theories of the body.  Jewish and Roman medicine and gender. Introduction to biological imagery in theogynies – “gendering god”.  Brief introduction to the Hermetica.

Readings for next class: (O) “Discourse of Hermes Trismegistus,” pp. 567-581;     @ "Discourse of Hermes Trismegistus: The Key

 

Wed. Feb. 2: Discussion of the texts.  Lecture: “Gnosticisms” – introduction to the readings.

Readings for next class: (O) Selections from the Odes of Solomon, pp. 267 ff: # 3, 19, 35, 42;  (O) Selections from the Nag Hammadi Library,  pp. 51-86

 

Fri. Feb. 4: Discussion of texts.  Introduction to early Jewish mysticism.

Readings for next class: @ Selections from Sefer Yetzirah (long version)

 

Mon. Feb. 7:  Discussion of text.  Introduction to Sefer ha-Bahir

Readings for next class: @ Selections from Sefer ha-Bahir @Wolfson, “Female Imaging of the Torah”

 

Wed. Feb. 9: Discussion of texts. Introduction to “gendering of worshippers.” Manly women.

Readings in class: (O) Selection from Gospel of Thomas, pp. 300-307.

Readings for next class: (O) “The Passion of Perpetual and Felicity”, pp. 171-181; (O) “Acts of Paul and Thecla” pp. 445-453.

 

Fri. Feb. 11: Discussion of texts. Lecture: Christian asceticism – desert fathers and mothers.  Rise of Islam, gender roles in Islam and surrounding cultures, and Sufism.

Readings for Fri. Feb. 18: Holy Women of the Syrian Orient, “Pelagia”, pp. 40-62, “Women martyrs of Najran,” intro and “Mahyah” pp. 100-104, 1-9-111, “Susan” pp. 133-141, “Anastasia,” pp. 142-149.

 

 

Mon. Feb. 14: Meet in the library.

 

Wed. Feb. 16: No Class.

 

Fri. Feb. 18: Discussion of readings from Holy Women of the Syrian Orient.

Readings for next class:  @ Kraemer: “Heresy as Women’s Religion and Women’s Religion as Heresy” from Her Share of the Blessings.  @ 1Timothy 2, 5; Schimmel, “My Soul is a woman” in Helminski, Women of Sufism,  pp. 98-108; @ Selection from Farid al-Din; @ Selections from Early Sufi Women by as-Sulami.

 

Mon. Feb. 21: Discussion of readings in conjunction with continued discussion of Holy Women of the Syrian Orient. Lecture/discussion: Gendering renunciation in early  Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Readings for next class: Women of Sufism, pp. 25-34.

 

Wed. Feb. 23: Discussion of texts

Readings for next class: Women of Sufism, pp.  35-55, 90-97.

 

Fri. Feb. 25: Discussion of texts. Feminization as positive?

Readings for next class: @ Eilberg-Schwartz, “Women Rabbis and the Orchard of Heavenly Delights,” from God’s Phallus.

 

Mon. Feb. 28: Discussion of text.  Lecture: Introduction to the “high” Middle Ages – Jews, Christians, Muslims, men and women, spirituality and sexuality.  Due: Bibliography and proposals.

Readings for next class: “Introduction” to the Zohar,  pp. 3-39.

Wed. March2:  Discussion of text.  Lecture:  Introduction to medieval Kabbalah. 

Readings for next class:  @Scholem, “Shekhinah: the Feminine Element in the Divinity”; @Wolfson, “Crossing Boundaries in Kabbalistic Ritual and Myth.”

 

 

Fri. March 4: Discussion of articles. Lecture: Introduction to Sitra Achra – the evil “other woman”.

Readings in class: Zohar, pp. 49-53.

Readings for next class: Zohar,  pp. 84-90; @ Selection from the Zohar;   @ Treatise on the Left Emanation

Mon. March 7: Discussion of texts.

 

Wed. March: 9: Lecture: Introduction to Christian monastic spirituality.

Readings for next class: Bynum, Jesus as Mother, chap. 4.

 

Fri. March 11: Discussion of reading.

Readings for next class: Letters of Adam of Perseigne,  Letters 1-3.

 

Mon. March 14: Discussion of texts.

Readings for next class: Letters of Adam of Perseigne,  Letters 6, 11,15.

 

Wed. March 16:  Discussion of texts. Due: Analytic papers. 

Readings for next class: @ Selection from Julian of Norwich, Showings.

 

Fri. March 18: Discussion of text.

Spring Break – Enjoy!

 

Mon. March 28:  Lecture: The  Khanqah,  ribat, and gravesites in Islam – women becoming /visiting saints for Muslims and others.

Readings for next class: Women of Sufism, pp. 56- 59; 117-123; @ Further tales of Sayyida Nafisa:  #1, #2; @ H. Lufti, “Manners and Customs of Fourteenth-Century Cairene Women: Female Anarchy versus Male Shari’a Order in Muslim Perscriptive Treatises;   @V. J. Hoffman, “Muslim Sainthood, Women, and the Legend of Sayyida Nafisa,” from Women saints in world religions.

 

Wed. March 30: Discussion of the texts.

 

Fri. April 1: Continued discussion of the texts. Lecture: Questions in medieval western women’s spirituality. Vote on list of topics to be studied starting Mon. April 11 – see below.

Readings for next class: Bynum, Jesus as Mother, chap. 5. Begin Reading Mechthild Flowing Light. Class divided into 3 groups.  Group 1: Mechthild, Flowing Light, Books 1-2; Group 2 – Books 3-5; Group 3 Books 6-8.

 

Mon. April 4: Discussion of texts, mostly focused on Bynum.

 

Wed. April 6: No class – keep reading Mechthild. Due: Research papers.

 

Fri. April 8: Discussion of Mechthild.

Readings for next class: @Exodus 22:18 ; @Deut. 18: 9-22  ; @ 1 Samuel 28  ; @Bukhari, Sahih vol. 7, book 71, # 656-663  ; @ Sunan Abu Dawud, Book 29 # 3895-3909

 

Choice of Topics to be studied for the remaining weeks.  Class may select 3-4.

1) The Woes of Being Male: Demonic seduction and the problems of controlling the male body (Jewish and Christian sources)

2) Witchcraft and magic as gendered endeavors/accusations (Jewish, Christian and Muslim sources)

3)  Same-sex love (male or female) as spiritual expression and/or religious problem (Jewish, Christian, Muslim sources)

4) “Feminizing” undesirables: a tactic in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religious polemic (Jewish, Christian, and Muslim sources)

5) Gendering holy war –  women warriors and a most masculine pursuit. (Christian and Muslim sources)

6) Eunuchs – from sexual objects to angelic intercessors (Christian and Muslim sources)

7) Hermaphrodites, androgyny, and cross-dressers. (Jewish, Christian, and Muslim sources)

8) Eating and decay as gendered processes (Christian sources)

9) Jewish women’s spirituality – what can we know? (Jewish sources)

10) Marian devotion and rejection: (Jewish, Christian, and Muslim sources)

 

Mon. April 11:  Discussion of magic in the Tanakh and Hadith.  Introduction to early Jewish magic.

Readings for next class:  @Rebecca Lesses “Exe(o)rcising power: women as sorceresses, Exorcists and demonesses in Babylonian Jewish Society” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 69 (2001)  ; @ Selections from the Babylonian Talmud on witchcraft and magic  ; @ Selections from Shaked, Amulets and magic bowls; ; @Selections from Sefer ha-Razim (Book of Secrets)

 

Wed. April 13: Discussion of texts.  Lecture: Witchcraft and magic in the Middle Ages and early Modern period

Readings for next class: @ Selections from Gregory of Tours History of the Franks @ Selections from Sefer Hasidim @ Selected 15th century Christian witchcraft texts ; @ Further selections from Malleus Malificarum (Hammer of Witches);  ; Selections from Cornelius Agrippa of Nettelsheim, Three Books On Occult Philosophy @ Book 1 “On natural magic” chaps. 41-45  ; @ Book 3 pt 2 “On Ceremonial Magic”, chaps. 19, 20, 25-7   - Handout -Selection from Lyndal Roper , Oedipus and the Devil

 

Fri. April 15th: Discussion of texts.

Readings for next class:  @ Leviticus 18:22; @ Romans 1:18-32; @Genesis 18:16-19:38, esp. 19: 4-11; @ Qur’an 7: 80-84, 26:160-175; @Apocalypse of Peter (See especially #31) ; @ “Homoeroticism” from Michael Satlow, Tasting the Dish: Rabbinic Rhetorics of Sexuality; Introduction plus choose at least one chapter from part one (pp. 29-186) and one chapter from part 2 (pp. 189-357) from  Bernadette Brooten, Love Between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism on reserve at the library.

 

Mon. April 18: Discussion of texts.  Introduction to same-sex love in pre-modern Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Readings for next class:  @ Selected Carolingian poetry; @ Selected Hadith; @ Selected Muslim apocalypses; @ Selected Muslim poets from al-Andalus  @ Selected Jewish poems from al-Andalus; @ Selections from Ahmad ibn Yusuf al-Tifashi, Delights of the Heart; Select one article from Same sex Love and desire among women in the Middle Ages - On Reserve at the Macalester Library; Oberhelm “Hierarchies of Gender, Ideology, and Power in Ancient and Medieval Greek and Arabic Dream Literature” – Handout in class.  Recommended:  @al-Razi on the hidden illness (medical treatise on male same-sex love in medieval Islam)

 

Wed. April 20: Discussion of texts.  Lecture: Mary in the Christian traditions

Readings for next class: @ Luke 1 and 2; @Acts 1:14; @ Matthew 1 and 2; @Pseudo Evodius on the Dormition of Mary; @Hildegard