Divine Touch and Relicization within Narrative, Hagiographical, and Visual Representations from the Twelfth through the Fifteenth Centuries

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University Club, Room 212
@ 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm

Illuminated manuscript page from "Miscellany on the life of St. Edmund" depicting a burial scene. A group of men place Edmund's head on his decapitated body while one man covers the body for burial. A tree appears at the center and a wolf appears at the lower left.
Image: Scene from “Miscellany on the life of St. Edmund.” England, Bury St Edmunds, ca. 1130. Image Credit: Pierpont Morgan Library; MS M.736 fol. 17r.

 

Monday Seminar:

Stephanie Grace Petinos

Kingdon Fellow (2017-2018)

French, Hunter College

 

Divine Touch and Relicization within Narrative, Hagiographical, and Visual Representations from the Twelfth through the Fifteenth Centuries is an interdisciplinary investigation of specific moments in various Old French, Middle English, hagiographical, and visual representations, in which individuals—humans, non-human animals, and objects—are divinely touched. The individuals in question are miraculously bodily restored, transforming them into living relics; a process that I refer to as relicization. As relicized bodies are at once living and holy material, functioning in and among the secular and sacred realms, what can they tell us about the hierarchy between humans, non-human animals, and objects? How do they (re)consider the role(s) and limits of the body? What do they reveal about seemingly fixed systems of power—patriarchal, familial, feudal, ecclesiastical—in the Middle Ages?

 

Stephanie Grace Petinos received her Ph.D. in French with a certificate in Medieval Studies in September 2016 from The City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center. Her dissertation was entitled “Seeking Holiness: The Contribution of Nine Vernacular Narrative Texts from the 12th to the 14th Centuries.” Her main research interests include medieval spirituality, medieval materiality, ecocritical theory, and gender. She has several forthcoming articles related to these fields, including “The Ecology of Relics in Philippe de Remi’s Le Roman de la Manekine.” Ed. Heide Estes. Medieval Ecocriticisms (Amsterdam University Press); “Happiness via Spiritual Transcendence in a Selection of Old French Texts.” Ed. Bryan Turner, Yuri Contreras-Vejar, and Joanna Tice. Exploring Happiness; and “Leprosy as Locus of Divine Touch in Ami et Amile.” Paroles Gelées.