Illicit Ecologies: Queer Animacy and Epistemological Erasure in History of Wolves

This thesis attends to the slippages between life and nonlife in Emily Fridlunds 2017 novel History of Wolves. It traces the matter that is granted life or animacy, as well as the matter that is devitalized. Through the protagonist, Linda, the novel investigates the role of both scientific knowledge production and Christian Science in placing arbitrary biological limits on life forms, making some visible and others unseeable and unsayable. The thesis fleshes out the characters’ climate denial as yet another erasure of the animate agents. Ultimately, the thesis asks: if we can expand what is worthy of life, can we, in turn, expand what agents, actors, and matters are deserving of care?

Stubborn Fractions

Unlike his high realist colleagues, Mark Twain remained ambivalent about both a painless ideal and the potentially refining value of exposure to pain. He conveys this ambivalence by habitually relying on fractions when assessing the extent to which he believed pain could or should be eradicated. This chapter situates Twain’s reliance on fractions within the context of his fascination with Christian Science. While Mary Baker Eddy drew on religious principles in order to evoke a utopian world blissfully free of pain, Twain’s own aesthetic imagination repeatedly conjured a world in which pain played a manageable yet still valuable part. For him, that value resided largely in suffering’s capacity to enhance not already refined sensibilities as in high realism but the capacity for imaginative projection into the lives of others. His writings reliably suggest, however, that only exceptional individuals had what it took imaginatively to make anything other than their own suffering a priority.

‘Driven Insane by Eddyism’: Christian Science, Popular Psychopathology, and a Turn-of-the-Century Contest over Faith and Madness

ABSTRACT At the turn of the twentieth century, Christian Scientists contended with ongoing allegations that their faith was more of a mental pathology than a religion. This article analyzes how the Church of Christ, Scientist, in particular its public relations branch the Committee on Publication, systematically contended with popular portrayals of Christian Science as a source or indicator of insanity. Two highly profiled court cases, both predicated on the purported insanity of a Christian Science woman and her attendant inability to manage her business affairs, are explored for their cultural effect on the promotion of the causal association between Christian Science and madness. This study employs newspaper clippings collected and archived by the Church's Committee on Publication as well as court records to argue for the salience of the insanity charge in shaping the early history of Christian Science and its public perception. As a religious tradition premised on divine healing and health, popular psychopathological interpretations of Christian Science were particularly subversive and functioned not only to discredit and undermine the religion's claims to healing but to forward societal fears that Christian Science study posed a unique threat to women's health. This examination draws attention to a dynamic historical exchange between the press and a new religious movement, as well as the polyvalent gendered presumptions embedded in popular charges of insanity in association with religion.

Hegumen Andronik (Trubachev): A Researcher and Commentator of Priest Pavel Florensky’s Legacy

The article examines the life and research activities of Hegumen Andronik (Trubachev). Hegumen Andronik was a member of the Liturgical Committee of the Russian Orthodox Church and served as the abbot of the Valaam Monastery of Savior Transfiguration, participated in the publication of the Priest’s Handbook, Orthodox Encyclopedia, and other projects. Hegumen Andronik authored many liturgical texts and articles dedicated to Russian Saints (Venerable Sergius of Radonezh, Venerable Paphnutius of Borovsk, Venerable Ambrose of Optina, etc.). However, his most significant contribution was made to the study of Russian philosophy. The main work of Hegumen Andronik was analysis and preparation for publication of materials from Pavel Florensky’s archives. The article describes important points in the biography of Hegumen Andronik and the difficulties he overcame in his major activities. Hegumen Andronik did not only “re-discover” Florensky for Russian philosophy and theology but also proposed and substantiated the position according to which the works of the priest can be adequately understood. He substantiated that Florensky’s legacy is a part of the corpus of Christian philosophy, Christian science, and Christian art. In the opinion of Hegumen Andronik, this unique heritage can provide material for the development of theology, but in itself it is not theology. It becomes obvious that Florensky’s works are also of interest in other areas of human knowledge, since methodologically they go back to the ideas of “integral knowledge” and “theurgy,” according to which all areas of knowledge and human activity do not mix or lose their specificity but are synthesized in a common relationship with religion and worship.

More About Gorchakov, Prokofiev’s Secretary

Цель статьи — представить новые сведения о секретаре Сергея Прокофьева Георгии Николаевиче Горчакове (1902–1995), сосредоточенные в неизвестных документальных материалах. Это был музыкант, который расшифровывал музыкальные и литературные рукописи Прокофьева, писал под его диктовку, в течение нескольких лет был проводником литературной и музыкальной мысли композитора, довел до стадии завершения несколько крупных прокофьевских партитур. Их связывало и общее вероучение, которому оба были привержены: Христианская наука. Письма Горчакова — его рассказы Прокофьеву о себе — обновляют знание о повседневном существовании обычных людей русской эмиграции. Они затрагивают не только мир музыкальный, но и непарадную сторону жизни Лазурного берега, «мореходную» тему, неизвестный прежде мотив скаутского движения: оно, оказывается, интересовало Прокофьева, у которого подрастали сыновья. Конечно, картинки общения Прокофьева и Горчакова не могли обойтись без зарисовок каждодневной прозаической жизни музыкального издательства, волнений по поводу грядущего концерта, для которого прислали не все оркестровые партии, других колоритных подробностей. Событием в прокофьевской историографии можно считать уточнение сроков выхода в свет «Вещей в себе». The aim of the article is to present a new information about Prokofiev’s secretary — Georgiy Nikolaevich Gorchakov in the analysis of previously unknown documentary materials. He was the musician, who deciphered Prokofiev’s sheet music and literary manuscripts, and who took his dictation. For years he was an agent of the composer’s musical and literary ideas and he brought to completion some large-scale Prokofiev’s scores. Besides, they were bound by the same belief — Christian Science. Gorchakov’s letters — his narrations to Prokofiev about himself — update the knowl edge about ordinary Russian people’s immigration experience. They tackle not only the world of music, but also Côte d’Azur’s everyday life: navigation and scouting, in which Prokofiev — a father of growing boys — appeared to be interested. Certainly the descrip tion of Prokofiev and Gorchakov’s communication wouldn’t be complete without outlining the mundane everyday life of the music publishing house and nerve-wracking preparations for the coming concert which was missing some orchestral parts, and other colorful details. A more accurate date for the publication of Things in Themselves could be considered a significant discovery in Prokofiev’s historiography.

Manhood and Mary Baker Eddy: Muscular Christianity and Christian Science

On first examination, “muscular Christianity”—with its emphasis on manly vigor and physical strength—positions itself well afield of Christian Science teachings on the non-physical basis of existence, as propounded by founder Mary Baker Eddy. Nonetheless, both movements arose in the nineteenth century with a deep commitment to revitalizing Christianity and its practical value in an increasingly scientific and secular age, especially regarding bodily well-being. Both Eddy and advocates of muscular Christianity defended their respective systems on scientific and religious grounds, focusing on questions of health. At a time when the Young Men's Christian Association was a leading exponent of muscular Christianity, Eddy saw fit to give it significant philanthropic support. While her gift reflected civic goodwill as opposed to a close relationship with the Association, I argue that it was not anomalous to Eddy's overall values and vision for Christian Science. Like muscular Christians, Eddy was calling for a progressive Christianity that met the criteria of a pragmatic age. In giving attention to issues around manhood, Eddy was signaling the necessity as well as potentiality of Christian spirituality to be a source of health and empowerment for modern man.

A “Green Oak in a Thirsty Land”

After the passing in 1910 of Mary Baker Eddy, founder of the rapidly increasing Christian Science movement, the governing Christian Science Board of Directors of The Mother Church in Boston faced the daunting task of unifying the sometimes unruly and overly exuberant members of a faith noted for its efforts to reintroduce healing to the religious scene. This essay demonstrates that over the next fifteen years the Directors skillfully consolidated their authority and so established centralized control over the fastest-growing religious group in the United States. Divisive litigation between the Directors and the independent-minded Trustees of the Christian Science Publishing Society, 1919–1921, was resolved in favor of the Directors and so provided the capstone for their efforts to bring order to the new faith. In their actions, the Directors often followed business and societal practices, as a means of attaining routinization of charisma.