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Revelations of a Genealogy: Biblical Women in Performance during Twentieth-Century American Feminisms

Innes, Kari A.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1332869289

Abstract Details

2012, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, Theatre and Film.
This dissertation treats dramatic representations of biblical women by women that have emerged in the last century within milieus informed by emerging and shifting feminisms. I begin my study with proto-feminist Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and then trace a genealogy of the dramatization of biblical women during twentieth-century American feminisms through the works of female artists. These performers and playwrights include Salome dancers, Florence Kiper Frank, Lorraine Hansberry, Marsha Norman, Madonna, and others. The goal of my project is to argue that theatre and performance provide what feminist theologian Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza describes as a “hermeneutics of creative imagination and ritualization” that “retells biblical stories and celebrates our foresisters in a feminist key.” Feminist religious scholars like Fiorenza, as well as feminists such as Hélène Cixous and artists such as Sandra Cisneros, have urged similar re-visionings of biblical women towards feminists ends. These projects, however, tend to privilege critical and non-dramatic texts, particularly the creative writings of contemporary women that endeavor to rewrite biblical women through a feminist perspective. Marjorie Procter-Smith, a scholar of feminist liturgy, ritual studies, and performance theory, cites the need for historical reconstruction, but that which “involves not only remembering with the mind but also remembering with the body.” While Fiorenza and Procter-Smith do not extend their claims to include drama in the reconstruction of feminine memory, the goal of my research is to argue that theatre and performance fulfill this type of hermeneutic. My project asks “Does, or how does, theatre and performance provide an embodied ‘creative and imaginative hermeneutic’ to reclaim and reshape feminine religious and social identity?”
Scott Magelssen, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
Jonathan Chambers, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Lesa Lockford, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Susana Peña, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
351 p.
Theater Studies
Biblical Women; Bible Plays; Bible in Performance; Feminist Theology

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Innes, K. A. (2012). Revelations of a Genealogy: Biblical Women in Performance during Twentieth-Century American Feminisms [Doctoral dissertation, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1332869289

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Innes, Kari. Revelations of a Genealogy: Biblical Women in Performance during Twentieth-Century American Feminisms. 2012. Bowling Green State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1332869289.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Innes, Kari. "Revelations of a Genealogy: Biblical Women in Performance during Twentieth-Century American Feminisms." Doctoral dissertation, Bowling Green State University, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1332869289

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

bgsu1332869289
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© 2012, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Bowling Green State University and OhioLINK.