Papers by Emilia M Mirova
Though centuries separate medieval mystical piety and classical ballet, both share in common the ... more Though centuries separate medieval mystical piety and classical ballet, both share in common the contested nature of the body, regarding the body at once as both a vehicle to sublime transcendence and unruly flesh that must be disciplined in order to obtain that transcendence. This research considers the commonalities between these attitudes, considering how gender, performance, and presence play into the perception of the body in classical ballet and in medieval mystical piety as both subject and object, playing both off of each other to look for moments of alignment and moments of divergence. Utilising Caroline Walker Bynum’s work on sanctified feminine medieval bodies and Orsi and Tweed’s construction of lived religion, I connect Bynum’s presentation of the body with the way bodies are presented, viewed, and consumed in ballet, from the Romantic period to contemporary ballet companies. This allows for engagement with constructions of gender that put medieval modes of sanctity in context, to argue a Durkheimian interpretation of identity and religious value from the ground up, and to theorise about the nature of the sanctified body as a thing presented to the world and a thing negated by the will and the spirit. In this search for the body, I look at how sainthood and sanctity – the idea of the perfected, holy, mediating body – play out in the sacred context of theology and the arguably secular context of ballet. I propose a model of sainthood and martyrology that draws continuity from the adoration of novice monks and laypeople in the medieval church to the adoration of novice dance students and balletomanes in the present. This ultimately comparative work with elements of personal reflection, art, and creative non-fiction engages the sociological side of religious studies and brings its tools to bear on arts, gender, and culture, an area ripe for exploration by scholars of religion.
New Orleans is saturated in the manufactured image of Voodoo, the spooky, mysterious magic that V... more New Orleans is saturated in the manufactured image of Voodoo, the spooky, mysterious magic that Voodoo represents to the rest of the country, especially the white, Christian middle-class. Identity and consumption are strongly married with regards to Voodoo in New Orleans, and each provides legitimacy for the practice, sale, and visibility of this Afro-Caribbean religion in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Through white interest and white consumption, Voodoo’s emergent place in the religious marketplace has “mainstreamed” a previously secretive and vilified religious system. This paper will present a brief history of the presentation of New Orleans Voodoo in the white American marketplace, and examine the relationship between identity, legitimacy, and consumption. It will argue that it is the presence of Voodoo in the consumer culture as a religious system with marketing and a marketplace of its own that helps legitimate Voodoo, and furthermore, makes this traditionally Afro-Caribbean faith accessible and attractive to white Americans. When the white middle class starts to accept and practice a religious system, its legitimacy is strengthened, as the white middle class has more resources to devote to the practice as well as to asserting their right to practice it. This “mainstreaming” of Voodoo contributes to its legitimacy, turning the traditionally secretive practice of Afro-Caribbeans into another option in the religious marketplace. As a result, New Orleans Voodoo has a visible place in marketing, tourism, and online commerce as both a piece of Louisiana flair and a legitimate religious choice.
This paper examines the various symbols found in two Catholic cemeteries of New Orleans in order ... more This paper examines the various symbols found in two Catholic cemeteries of New Orleans in order to evaluate the symbolic language surrounding death. From that evaluation, I hope to better understand how that symbolic language surrounding death presents in the two cemeteries in question. Utilizing Mircea Eliade’s theory of sacred space as well as elements of a “lived religion” approach, it examines the kinds of symbols used within the cemeteries and the way the symbols communicate various ideas about death. From that, it extrapolates a consideration of the relationship Catholic New Orleanians who bury in the two cemeteries being considered have with their dead. It draws upon data collected in two cemeteries, St Louis Cemetery No 1 and No 3, as well as on various sources relating to Catholic theology and the history of New Orleans. This paper illustrates some of the motifs present in the cemeteries and sets a broad-base pattern of categories—explicitly religious, largely secular, and hybrid. These three categories provide a constructive framework for considering how symbols denote sacrality, how secular symbols become sacred through context and proximity to the sacred, and how these ideas function in a way that is particular to New Orleanian Catholics. This research also engages in the essential work of understanding the religious life of New Orleans as a distinct phenomenon within American Catholicism, in addition to contributing to the necessary undertaking to document New Orleans in both pre-and-post-Katrina conditions. As such, it is the beginning of a larger effort to expand both efforts in the future.
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Papers by Emilia M Mirova