The Cathar Mary Magdalene and the Sacred Feminine: Pop Culture Legend vs. Medieval Doctrine

2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 419-431 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Ann Beavis
Keyword(s):  
Pop Culture ◽  
Sacred Feminine ◽  
Mary Magdalene

scholarly journals A Likely Story: The Da Vinci Code as Work on Myth

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Diane Norma Morris
Keyword(s):  
Da Vinci ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Sacred Feminine ◽  
Mary Magdalene ◽  
Popular Knowledge ◽  
Popular Appeal ◽  
And Gender ◽  
A Site ◽  
And Control ◽  
Gender Knowledge

<p>Theory of myth is used as an explanatory framework within which to explore the enormous and controversial popular appeal of the novel The Da Vinci Code, first published in 2003. The Da Vinci Code is a site of contestation between truth and falsity. Modernity has used the category of myth to contain and control false stories that claim to be true. Myth is characterised here as story-with-significance but also as story believed by people other than scholars and the guardians of legitimate culture. The novel reinserts story into religious history, finding 'natural' significances to replace those progressively exposed and expunged by scholarship and liberal theology. Code's major themes, the sacred feminine and the bloodline of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, endorse popular knowledge about religion, inheritance, identity, community and gender, knowledge that is threatened by detraditionalisation, feminism, and modernity's emphasis on the autonomous individual. The bloodline myth's move into the category of fiction further blurs the boundaries between the legitimately true and the mythically false.</p>

The Deification of Mary Magdalene

2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Ann Beavis
Keyword(s):  
Divine Feminine ◽  
Feminist Scholarship ◽  
Sacred Feminine ◽  
Mary Magdalene ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Public Imagination

The past 25 years have seen an upsurge of interest in the figure of Mary Magdalene, whose image has been transformed through feminist scholarship from penitent prostitute to prominent disciple of Jesus. This article documents another, non-academic, interpretation of Mary Magdalene – the image of Mary as goddess or embodiment of the female divine. The most influential proponent of this view is Margaret Starbird, who hypothesizes that Mary was both Jesus’ wife and his divine feminine counterpart. The author suggests that feminist theologians/thealogians should (a) be aware of this popular understanding of Mary; and (b) consider what it is about Mary Magdalene as the sacred feminine/Bride of Jesus/Sophia that captures the public imagination in a way that other feminist christologies do not.

scholarly journals A Likely Story: The Da Vinci Code as Work on Myth

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Diane Norma Morris
Keyword(s):  
Da Vinci ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Sacred Feminine ◽  
Mary Magdalene ◽  
Popular Knowledge ◽  
Popular Appeal ◽  
And Gender ◽  
A Site ◽  
And Control ◽  
Gender Knowledge

<p>Theory of myth is used as an explanatory framework within which to explore the enormous and controversial popular appeal of the novel The Da Vinci Code, first published in 2003. The Da Vinci Code is a site of contestation between truth and falsity. Modernity has used the category of myth to contain and control false stories that claim to be true. Myth is characterised here as story-with-significance but also as story believed by people other than scholars and the guardians of legitimate culture. The novel reinserts story into religious history, finding 'natural' significances to replace those progressively exposed and expunged by scholarship and liberal theology. Code's major themes, the sacred feminine and the bloodline of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, endorse popular knowledge about religion, inheritance, identity, community and gender, knowledge that is threatened by detraditionalisation, feminism, and modernity's emphasis on the autonomous individual. The bloodline myth's move into the category of fiction further blurs the boundaries between the legitimately true and the mythically false.</p>

Toucher II: Keep Your Hands to Yourself, Jean-Luc Nancy

Derrida Today ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
McQuillan Martin
Keyword(s):  
Modern Literature ◽  
Mary Magdalene

This text begins by considering the phrase ‘digital haptology’ as suggested by the closing pages of Derrida's Le Toucher. It suggests that this moment in telecommunications presents a model of ‘tele-haptology’. The text goes on to consider Jean-Luc Nancy's ‘Noli me tangere’ as a response to Le Toucher. In particular it is concerned with Nancy's hypothesis on Modern literature and art as having an essential link to the gospel parables. Through a reading of Nancy's text and the gospels, this hypothesis is placed in doubt. Notably, the argument is made that once again Nancy's discourse on touching leads him to make a too hasty fore-closure of otherness within his intended deconstruction of reading and his account of Mary Magdalene. In response to Nancy's formulation of literature as parable, an alternative consideration of literature as tele-haptology is proposed.

Cultura Panamericana

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Macías
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Sense Of Place ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Pop Culture ◽  
Mixed Race ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Expressive Culture ◽  
Culture Industries ◽  
Latin Americans ◽  
Pan American

I am writing this analytical appreciation of cultura panamericana, or pan-American culture, to propose a wider recognition of how its historical linkages and contemporary manifestations confront colonialism, honor indigenous roots, and reflect multiple, mixed-race identities. Although often mediated by transnational pop-culture industries, expressive cultural forms such as art and music articulate resonant themes that connect US Latinos and Latinas to Latin Americans, pointing the way toward a hemispheric imaginary. In US murals, for example, whether in the Chicago neighborhood of Pilsen or the Los Angeles neighborhood of Highland Park, pan-American expressive culture offers alternative representations by embracing indigeneity, and it creates a sense of place by tropicalizing urban spaces.

Imagining Mary Magdalene

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Jodie Eichler-Levine
Keyword(s):  
Comic Books ◽  
Historical Novels ◽  
Religion And Spirituality ◽  
Mary Magdalene ◽  
The Past ◽  
Scholarly Discourse ◽  
Do So

In this article I analyze how Americans draw upon the authority of both ancient, so-called “hidden” texts and the authority of scholarly discourse, even overtly fictional scholarly discourse, in their imaginings of the “re-discovered” figure of Mary Magdalene. Reading recent treatments of Mary Magdalene provides me with an entrance onto three topics: how Americans see and use the past, how Americans understand knowledge itself, and how Americans construct “religion” and “spirituality.” I do so through close studies of contemporary websites of communities that focus on Mary Magdalene, as well as examinations of relevant books, historical novels, reader reviews, and comic books. Focusing on Mary Magdalene alongside tropes of wisdom also uncovers the gendered dynamics at play in constructions of antiquity, knowledge, and religious accessibility.

Mathematics without Apologies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Harris
Keyword(s):  
Number Theory ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Pop Culture ◽  
First Century ◽  
2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
Dinner Party ◽  
Mathematical Life ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
The 2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
Guided Tour

What do pure mathematicians do, and why do they do it? Looking beyond the conventional answers, this book offers an eclectic panorama of the lives and values and hopes and fears of mathematicians in the twenty-first century, assembling material from a startlingly diverse assortment of scholarly, journalistic, and pop culture sources. Drawing on the author's personal experiences as well as the thoughts and opinions of mathematicians from Archimedes and Omar Khayyám to such contemporary giants as Alexander Grothendieck and Robert Langlands, the book reveals the charisma and romance of mathematics as well as its darker side. In this portrait of mathematics as a community united around a set of common intellectual, ethical, and existential challenges, the book touches on a wide variety of questions, such as: Are mathematicians to blame for the 2008 financial crisis? How can we talk about the ideas we were born too soon to understand? And how should you react if you are asked to explain number theory at a dinner party? The book takes readers on an unapologetic guided tour of the mathematical life, from the philosophy and sociology of mathematics to its reflections in film and popular music, with detours through the mathematical and mystical traditions of Russia, India, medieval Islam, the Bronx, and beyond.

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