Reimaging the Magdalene

Feminism, Art, and the Counter-Reformation

Dr. Siobhán Jolley (National Gallery, UK)

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English

T.& T.Clark Ltd
20 February 2025

Christianity; Bibles; Christian aspects of sexuality, gender & relationships; Sacred texts

Series: Scriptural Traces

This book offers a new, intersectional feminist approach to utilising and interpreting the visual reception of Mary Magdalene. Through employment of Liberative Reception Criticism, which develops traditional reception theory in line with liberative hermeneutics, via the insights of intersectionality as critical theory, Siobhán Jolley provides a novel means of analysing how women, and particularly the Magdalene, are imaged in Christian tradition.

Knowledge of both the biblical figure of Mary Magdalene and her cultural reception continue to be dominated by long-discredited ideas about her life and sexuality, which bear the hallmarks of their development under patriarchy. Through close study of relevant biblical texts and extracanonical accounts, and a comprehensive survey of the Magdalene’s presentation in the Italian art of the Counter-Reformation, Jolley demonstrates that the patriarchal portrayal of the Magdalene as a sexualised penitent and mournful witness to the resurrection is sustained by its mythic attachment to biblical text. Rather than adopting the same tropes uncritically, we are invited to look again at artworks and related texts in order to explore what happens when the influence of patriarchy is actively and intersectionally resisted. Ultimately, the Magdalene is transformed from a reductive and patriarchally mythologised figure to a multidimensional character, who is relatable and liberative as an exemplar.

By: Dr. Siobhán Jolley (National Gallery UK)
Imprint: T.& T.Clark Ltd
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9780567714268
ISBN 10: 0567714268
Series: Scriptural Traces
Pages: 224
Publication Date: 20 February 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Preface Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction Chapter One: Liberating the Magdalene Part 1: Imaging the Magdalene Chapter Two: Mythologising the Magdalene Chapter Three: Painting the Magdalene Part 2: Reimaging the Magdalene Chapter Four: The Power of Art and Image Chapter Five: Gallery 1: Decentring ‘Decency’ Chapter Six: Gallery 2: Confronting Trauma Chapter Seven: Gallery 3: Apostola Ecclesiae Chapter Eight: Gallery 4: The Magdalene from the Margins Conclusion Bibliography Index

Siobhán Jolley is Lecturer in Christian Studies at the University of Manchester, and Visiting Lecturer in Christianity and the Arts at King’s College, London. From 2022-2024, she was the Howard and Roberta Ahmanson Research Fellow in Art and Religion at the National Gallery.