IMC 2003: Sessions

Session 315: Power, Authority and Sacred Clothing in a Global Context

Sponsor:	King Fahd Center for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, Fulbright College, University of Arkansas
Organiser:	Lynda L. Coon, Department of Religious Studies, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
Moderator/Chair:	Michael Swartz, Melton Centre for Jewish Studies, Ohio State University
Paper 315-b	Clothing, Power and Meaning in Medieval Jewish Texts (Language: English) Michael Swartz, Melton Centre for Jewish Studies, Ohio State University Index terms: Biblical Studies, Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Liturgy, Religious Life
Paper 315-c	Ecclesiastical Authority and Sacred Clothing in Carolingian Biblical Exegesis (Language: English) Lynda L. Coon, Department of Religious Studies, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Index terms: Biblical Studies, Gender Studies, Liturgy, Sexuality
Abstract	This session explores how the rhetorical depiction of sacred vestments serves as an arena in which (largely) male authors work out issues of gender, power, and orthodoxy. Specifically, Rkia Cornell addresses how 11th-century Sufi hagiographers use hair shirts, veils, and burial shrouds as tropes for the path of female 'chivalry'. Michael Schwartz discusses liturgical and esoteric dimensions of clothing and its interpretation in Jewish sources from late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. Finally, Lynda Coon interprets how Carolingian exegetes employed allegorical readings of biblical clothing as the basis for the Church's claim of authority over the laity.