Mary Magdalene in Medieval Culture: Conflicted Roles

This innovative and multidisciplinary collection visits representations and interpretations of Mary Magdalene in the medieval and early modern periods, questioning major scholarly assumptions behind the examination of female saints and their depictions in medieval artworks, literature, and music. Mary Magdalene’s many and various characterizations from reformed prostitute to conversion-figure to devotee of Christ to "apostle to the apostles" to spiritual advisor to the Prince of Marseilles to hermit in the desert, to list just a few examples, mean that the many conflicted representations of Mary Magdalene apply to a staggering variety of cultural material, including art, liturgy, music, literature, theology, hagiography, and the historical record. Furthermore, Mary Magdalene has grown into an extremely popular and controversial figure due to recent books and movies concerning her, and due to a groundswell of general speculation concerning her relationship to Jesus: was she his acquaintance, follower, companion, wife, family-member, or lover? This volume employs a broad spectrum of theoretical methodologies in order to present poststructuralist, postcolonial, postmodernist, hagiographic, and feminist readings of the figure of Mary Magdalene, addressing and interrogating her conflicting roles and the precise relationship between her sacred and secular representations.

Peter V. Loewen is Associate Professor of musicology at Rice University. He is the author of Music in Early Franciscan Thought (2013), and articles concerning Mary Magdalene in From the Margins 2: Women of the New Testament and their Afterlives (2009); and in Speculum (July 2007), co-authored by Robin Waugh.

Robin Waugh specializes in Old English, Middle English, and Old Norse literature, and is Coordinator of Medieval Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University. He is the author of The Genre of Medieval Patience Literature, co-editor of another book, and has published articles in Modern Philology, Comparative Literature, JEGP, Philological Quarterly, and Speculum.