Martyrdom And Memory: Early Christian Culture Making

Description:
-- Elizabeth Clark, John Carlisle Kilgo Professor, Duke University

Review:
'Castelli has written a masterful book about the way early Christians used martyrdom to construct a collective memory of religious suffering.' -- Choice 'Castelli succeeds brilliantly in her aim to reveal the way martyrdom constructed a new ideology... that subverted Roman notions.' -- Kimberly B. Stratton, Biblical Theology Bulletin 'A required reading for anyone who studies and teaches on this problem from the past that remains distressingly present.' -- Chris Frilingos, Religious Studies Review 'Castelli's stimulating and provocative study is a creative contribution to this flourishing area.' -- Judith Lieu, Ecclesiastical History

Table of Contents:
Collective Memory and the Meanings of the Past Performing Persecution, Theorizing Martyrdom The Martyr's Memory: Autobiography and Self-Writing in Ignatius, Perpetua, and Pionius Martyrdom and the Spectacle of Suffering Layers of Verbal and Visual Memory: Commemorating Thecla the Protomartyr Religion as a Chain of Memory: Cassie Bernall of Columbine High and the Contemporary American Legacy of Early Christian Martyrdom

Author Biography:
Elizabeth A. Castelli is associate professor of religion at Barnard College at Columbia University. She is the author of Imitating Paul: A Discourse of Power, coauthor of The Postmodern Bible, and editor of several books, including Women, Gender, and Religion: A Reader. She serves on the editorial board of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion and is the editor of a new journal, Postscripts: Sacred Texts and Contemporary Worlds. In 2003 and 2004 she was the senior research scholar at the Center for Religion and Media at New York University.