David Gay and Stephen R. Reimer’s collection Locating the Past/Discovering the Present brings together a group of papers that originated at a conference at the University of Alberta in 2006. The focus is ostensibly on the creation and recreation of religious ideas and images through history and in the contemporary world through the idea of “marginality,” the relegation of some groups to the outskirts, contrasting insiders and outsiders as well as the thread of the religious basis of belonging through history. I say “ostensibly” because the range is far greater than that: it’s a broadly interdisciplinary collection, bringing together literary and cultural studies, critical theory, art history, history and religious studies.
The editors have provided an exhaustive introduction that elaborates on the concept of culture expressed by Clifford Geertz, quoted at the beginning: “Believing . . . that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be . . . an interpretive [science] in search of meaning.” The search for meaning in various contexts, and the resonances of those meanings in the everyday world inform the book.
Part I, “Locating the Past,” presents a group of papers on the historical meanings of marginality, beginning with Sheila Delany’s discussion of the position of the Jews in Europe, particularly France, in the time of Chaucer, and the possible influence on his “The Prioress’ Tale.” (“The Jewish Connection: Chaucer and the Paris Jews, 1394″) We already see the beginnings of a historical thread here in her comparison of the history of Marian miracle stories against conditions in Chaucer’s time. Susan (Shya) M. Young’s “Christian Interpretations of the Kabbalah: A Case Study in Marginality” traces the history of the popularity of the Jewish Kabbalah among some Christian elites in early modern Europe, and notes the influence these interpretations continue to exert on contemporary popular culture. Paul Dyck, in “Reading from the Margins at at Little Gidding, c. 1625-1640,” examines the conflict of the approach to religious practice on the part of the Little Gidding community with the accepted norms of the wider society of their time. Eva Maria Räpple, in “The Seductive Serpent,” discusses the role of images in establishing meaning, with special reference, as one might suspect, to images of Eve and the Serpent.
Part II, “Discovering the Present,” brings these themes into the contemporary world. Myrna Kostash, in “Memoirs of Byzantium,” details the tension in the processes of assimilation, specifically the adoption of Orthodox Christianity by the invading Slavs, providing a clear exposition of the processes by which the margins enter into the center. David Gay’s own entry, “‘The Writing on the Wall’: Rembrandt, Milton, and Menasseh be Israel in Ken McMullen’s R,” takes the idea of visual imagery into modern media, specifically through the art historical references in Ken McMullen’s short film The Strange Encounters and Timeless Wanderings of a Man Named R, with its references to the paintings of Rembrandt and the poetry of Milton. Chris K. Huebner’s “Marginality, Martyrdom, and the Messianic Remnant: Reflections on the Political Writings of St. Paul” explores the ways in which the margins have come to occupy a central position in the contemporary world (or at least, contemporary Westerns democracies). Interestingly enough, Huebner relates these ideas specifically to capitalism and its influence on the structures of modern society — in a highly theoretical way, of course. (Yes, St. Paul is directly relevant here: think about the rapidity with which a marginal group — Christians — became a central dominating element of Western societies.) Janet Catherine Wesselius’ “Shared Marginalization and Negotiated Identities: Religion and Feminism in Philosophy” is probably the most recondite offering contained in this volume, dealing with the marginalization of religion and women within the discipline of philosophy. Robert Menzies, in “Celluloid Temple: Viewing the Televised Ramayan as a Hindu Ritual Act” does, indeed, discuss the televised version of one of India’s national epics, the Ramayana as a reflection not only of the pervasiveness of worship in Hindu society, but the adaptability of those ideas of worship to modern mediums — and the adaptability of modern mediums to traditional forms of worship.
Let me be right up front about one thing: this is not a volume for the casual reader. Many of these essays are highly theoretical and very tightly focused. Standouts to this educated layman include Kostash’s “Memoirs of Byzantium,” both for its immediacy and its lively narrative, and Menzies’ “Celluloid Temple,” with its very intelligent explication of the bases of the Hindi “mythologicals” in traditional Hinduism and their place in the Indian film industry.
There are some challenging ideas in this collection, but one thing that puzzled me: although it’s almost impossible to discuss marginality without at least assuming a sense of the Other as something that contributes to identity and consequently, boundaries, in all the discussion of margins and centers, there was no explicit mention of it. It just makes sense that identity and self-definition would tie in here somewhere, and it seems a strange omission.
(The University of Alberta Press, 2010)
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