Death and Dissymmetry: The Politics of Coherence in the Book of JudgesUniversity of Chicago Press, 15.6.1988 - 312 sivua Combining literary criticism and feminist analysis, Death and Dissymmetry radically reinterprets not only the Book of Judges but also the tradition of its reception and understanding in the West. In Mieke Bal's account, Judges documents the Israelite culture learning to articulate itself in a decisive period of transition. Counter to standard readings of Judges, Bal's interpretation demonstrates that the book has a political and ideological coherence in which the treatment of women plays a pivotal role. Bal concentrates here not on the assassinations and battles that rage through Judges but on the violence in the domestic lives of individual characters, particularly sexual violence directed at women. Her skillful reading reveals that murder, in this text, relates to gender and reflects a social structure that is inherently contradictory. By foregrounding the stories of women and subjecting them to subtle narrative analysis, she is able to expose a set of preoccupations that are essential to the sense of these stories but are not articulated in them. Bal thereby develops a "countercoherence" in conflict with the apparent emphases of Judges—the politics, wars, and historiography that have been the constant focus of commentators on the book. Death and Dissymmetry makes an important contribution to the development of a feminist method of interpreting ancient texts, with consequences for religious studies, ancient history, literary theory, and gender studies. |
Sisältö
Introduction | 1 |
1 The Coherence of Politics and the Politics of Coherence | 9 |
2 Virginity and Entanglement | 41 |
3 Virginity Scattered | 69 |
Contribution to the Ethnography of Fatherhood | 95 |
From Speechact to Body Language | 129 |
6 The Architecture of Unhomeliness | 169 |
7 The Displacement of the Mother | 197 |
Conclusion | 231 |
A Model for Narratological Analysis | 248 |
Notes on Language | 251 |
Notes | 253 |
Bibliography | 285 |
299 | |
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Death and Dissymmetry: The Politics of Coherence in the Book of Judges Mieke Bal Rajoitettu esikatselu - 1988 |
Death and Dissymmetry: The Politics of Coherence in the Book of Judges Mieke Bal Rajoitettu esikatselu - 1988 |
Yleiset termit ja lausekkeet
Abimelech Achsah analysis aspect Bath Bath's becomes Beth Beth's biblical body Book of Judges chapter character concept concubine contiguity countercoherence critics culture daugh daughter death Deborah defloration Delilah episode event expression fabula father father-house fatherhood female focalization Freud Genesis gesture gibbor gibborim Gideon gift Hebrew hence hero house of Yahweh husband ideology interpretation Israel issue Jabesh-gilead Jephthah Kallah kill language Levite male Manoah marriage meaning messenger metonymic mother motivation murder narrative narratology narrator Nazirite nubile object opposition patrilocal perspective Philistines pilegesh political coherence position problematic question rape reading refers relation represents reversal riddle ritual sacrifice Samson scene seen sense sexual Shechem Sisera Slotki social Soggin Song of Deborah spatial speak speech speech-act stake status story subject-position symbolic term theory tion traditional transgression translation turn uncanny verb verse victim violence virginity virilocal wife woman women word Yael Yahweh