"From woman sprang man's salvation"

title quote from jane anger, an angry woman.

not all of this week's readings were angry, but a few of them were. it's refreshing to finally get a female perspective who doesn't seem to be kowtowing to male sensibilities. that anger can say, "from woman sprang man's salvation" signifies not just that she's had enough of men telling her she's crap, but also some more religious sentiment, something akin to what my friend julian of norwich might say. julian wouldn't be so angry about it, but that salvation is got from a woman (christ the MOTHER) seems pretty well documented in her writing. the time for women has come (maybe)!

since mentioning julian, it seems only fair to also talk about the other religious lady i covered in my presentation: sor juana ines de la cruz. her assertion that "in me the desire for learning was stronger than the desire for eating" coupled with her candid thoughts on why she went in to the convent at all (to learn more...religious reasons were nearly terciary) make her another strong woman, and provide yet another connection to julian. here, though, the "religious" woman is not all about having visions and reporting them. instead, sor juana envisions a world where women might not have to go to the convent if all they want to do is learn, especially when they, like her, enjoy the pleasures of life outside the convent walls. both working at a kind of "equality," though julian's is solely religious, and sor juana's seems quite the opposite.

peter denies christ, or, ramus proves to be pretty b.a.

peter ramus is my new best friend! again we are confronted with sass, and again, i love it. the way he addresses those he argues against is, of course, severely arrogant. it is also pretty hilarious.

"O Quintilian, although you say that moral virtue fashions good, respectable, and praiseworthy followers, nevertheless you do not give sufficient thought to what you say... For the future I expect better words than this, or you should think up better advice" (686). Woo! a direct address from ramus to q. seems so harsh. the "o" is my favorite part, and made me laugh out loud, partly because that is how i approach texts (as if i'm in conversation with them), but also partly because i agree with him.

ramus argues that the rhetorician does not have to be a "good" person, and i tend to agree here. what ramus refers to as q's "worthless ideas" sometimes seem just as useless to me. rhetoric is not a moral virtue. i stand by this.

Update from November 2: what would Julian think about this? does she consider herself involved in a kind of rhetoric? i think for her, the act of creating a story for herself and for women within christianity (in other words, the act of engaging in the rhetoric) IS a virtuous experience. it is how she gets closer to god, AND how she gets her point across. Revelations of Divine Love is rhetoric as moral virtue. the good woman speaking well. hm.

"I understand three ways of seeing motherhood in God..."

i think just some notes will do for today. i wrote kind of a lot in my class notes, so here i'll just highlight what i think is so interesting (and what i think i'll write my paper on).

motherhood is, for julian of norwich, a state of doing. for this reason can christ be called a "mother"-- he, too, performs works similar to those a mother would perform for her children. julian perceives god's will as action. this seems to be at odds with the traditional (but what tradition? i guess this just comes from some knowledge base i've assumed) view of women as passive. how can you both be passive and active at the same time? if to be a good christian means to be active, is it possible for women to be good christians? i think julian would say yes, because she equates action, or activeness, with women specifically.

"Help me Obi Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope."

First and foremost, today is a good day. Why? Because I threw a piece of trash from across the room towards the garbage barrel, and it actually went in. In technical terms, we call that a swish or a swoosh. Success? I think so.

Also, because I think I like Augustine. I like his wild and crazy previous life, and I like how when he converted he just didn't forget about his former self. As Joan Didion says in On Keeping a Notebook, "I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be whether we find them attractive company or not." Indeed, and so it is with Augustine.

This is the first time I've written in my commonplace about the subject we just had a class conversation on, and I find I'm thinking about it in many different ways than usual. I'll take this opportunity to disagree with some points raised in class regarding the following passage: "That you consider yourself adorned and beautified, this is an insult to the divine work, a violation of truth." And later, "If you are beautiful, why do you hide it? If ugly, why do you pretend to be beautiful, enjoying neither peace in your own conscience, nor satisfaction in misleading others?"

I think it's easy to get caught up in thinking that all these guys hated women, and hold ourselves up upon some pedestal of feminist righteousness, but when we really look at the words of the text, I don't think he's saying women are bad. I think he's saying that you shouldn't mask the beauty God has given you with artificial means. His is a holy argument, not necessarily an aesthetic one: by putting makeup on you cheapen His works. I like thinking about things like that. I also like that if you're ugly, you aren't fooling anyone by painting yourself up. Call me judgemental, but when I see an ugly person with tons of makeup on trying to hide it, I mentally call her out. Does this make me a bad person? Probably, but I can't help what I think (not even think, really: these are usually visceral reactions).

Anyway, that was pretty much a giant tangent about nothing but I felt that if I said it in class people would think that I hate women, which I don't, and they would attack me if I admitted I occasionally wear makeup, which I do. I've had about 100,000 crises of faith, but one thing I do like thinking about is each person as a work of art personally designed by God. You wouldn't try and put a little rouge on the Mona Lisa (hmm, but why not? I guess that's a different topic...I suppose it goes into the question of what art is, who makes art, and why art is "Art.").

Some things did confuse me though. Augustine seems a little militant when it comes to "winning" his audience. However you have to do it is fine, as long as in the end an audience has been won. In this case, the winning has everything to do with being on the "Good" side of things. It brings to mind Obi Wan Kenobi, and his pursuit of the good. He has to teach Luke to fight using the Force, and here, the "Force" might be understood as "rhetorical strategies." As a soldier for the good (a soldier for God, in Augustine's case), he's got to use everything he has, even if he has to use methods that can also be used for bad purposes (like Luke learning how to fight). I wonder if I could draw this Star Wars theme out longer? Probably not. But it certainly does call for an inspirational Obi Wan picture.