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Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage Dr. Jane Hwang Degenhardt

Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage By Dr. Jane Hwang Degenhardt

Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage by Dr. Jane Hwang Degenhardt


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Summary

This book explores the threat of Christian conversion to Islam in twelve early modern English plays. In works by Shakespeare, Marlowe, Massinger, and others, conversion from Christianity to Islam is represented as both tragic and erotic, as a fate worse than death and as a sexual seduction.

Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage Summary

Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage by Dr. Jane Hwang Degenhardt

This book explores the threat of Christian conversion to Islam in twelve early modern English plays. In works by Shakespeare, Marlowe, Massinger, and others, conversion from Christianity to Islam is represented as both tragic and erotic, as a fate worse than death and as a sexual seduction. Degenhardt examines the stage's treatment of this intercourse of faiths to reveal connections between sexuality, race, and confessional identity in early modern English drama and culture. In addition, she shows how England's encounter with Islam reanimated post-Reformation debates about the embodiment of Christian faith. As Degenhardt compellingly demonstrates, the erotics of conversion added fuel to the fires of controversies over Pauline universalism, Christian martyrdom, the efficacy of relics and rituals, and even the Knights of Malta.

Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage Reviews

Incisively arguing that conversion to Islam brought to a crisis English ambivalence about the Protestant emphasis on disembodiment and immateriality in religious life, this book brilliantly explores how "turning Turk" was simultaneously understood in religious, sexual, and proto-racial terms in the early modern period. Elegantly written and vividly illustrated, Degenhardt's book links early modern and medieval conversion narratives with canonical and less canonical plays to provide a strikingly original account of why Islamic conversion was so important to early modern thought and why the stage was such a rich site for its exploration. -- Jean E. Howard, George Delacorte Professor in the Humanities, Columbia University This is a strong, exciting, and original book. Degenhardt draws deeply on contemporary sermons, ecclesiastical debates, news pamphlets, and travel literature alongside a wide range of plays in order to give a complex and lively picture of the cultures of controversy in Renaissance England. -- Julia Reinhard Lupton, Professor of English, The University of California, Irvine Incisively arguing that conversion to Islam brought to a crisis English ambivalence about the Protestant emphasis on disembodiment and immateriality in religious life, this book brilliantly explores how "turning Turk" was simultaneously understood in religious, sexual, and proto-racial terms in the early modern period. Elegantly written and vividly illustrated, Degenhardt's book links early modern and medieval conversion narratives with canonical and less canonical plays to provide a strikingly original account of why Islamic conversion was so important to early modern thought and why the stage was such a rich site for its exploration. This is a strong, exciting, and original book. Degenhardt draws deeply on contemporary sermons, ecclesiastical debates, news pamphlets, and travel literature alongside a wide range of plays in order to give a complex and lively picture of the cultures of controversy in Renaissance England.

About Dr. Jane Hwang Degenhardt

Jane Hwang Degenhardt is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is the co-editor (with Elizabeth Williamson) of Religion and Drama in Early Modern England.

Table of Contents

Introduction: "Turning Turk" and the Embodiment of Christian Faith and Resistance; 1. Dangerous Fellowship: Universal Spirituality and its Bodily Limits in The Comedy of Errors and Othello; 2. Recycled Models: Catholic Martyrdom and Embodied Resistance to "Turning Turk"; 3. Engendering Faith: Sexual Defilement and Spiritual Redemption in The Renegado; 4. Reforming the Knights of Malta: Male Chastity and Temperance on the Early Modern Stage; Coda: Turning Miscegenation into Tragicomedy (Or Not): Greene's Orlando Furioso.

Additional information

GOR013813812
9780748640843
0748640843
Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage by Dr. Jane Hwang Degenhardt
Used - Very Good
Hardback
Edinburgh University Press
2010-08-19
272
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in very good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

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