3 May 2024
Last week I sat in on two postgraduate sessions, one called Barbieland and Kendom of God, part of the Theology and Film module; the other, Medieval Pilgrimage and the Cult of Saints, part of the Medieval Spirituality module.
The first explored the 2023 hit film Barbie from a feminist theology perspective. The other outlined the development of the cult of saints and relics, and the rise of ‘shrine rivalry’ during the medieval period. Here are some highlights from my notes to give a flavour of the learning experience at Sarum.
The Barbieland session, led by Dr Jayme Reaves, Director of Academic Development at Sarum, introduced feminism and feminist theology — ideological lenses created to correct and respond to misogynistic perspectives, to fill gaps and push back against all the ‘omnis’ associated with an all-powerful, all-seeing God.
In the film, the shift to feminism is marked by a scene riffing on the 2001: A Space Odyssey film, showing little girls smash their boring dolls at the sight of Margot Robbie as the glamourous Barbie.
The Barbies’ professional roles — doctors, astronauts, farm veterinarians and more – offered a far more exciting range of imaginative possibilities than dolls to feed and wipe. But when that shift led to the opposite extreme of Barbieland, where Barbie flourished as Ken ate her pink dust, was that liberation? Do Barbieland and Kendom contain the seeds of their own destruction?
A world with rigid constraints of the stereotypical masculine / feminine binary, where one group thrives at the expense of others, is just as boring. And, well, it sucks to have an identity that can only be defined in relation to an other.
The class concluded that both Barbie and Ken want choices, and want to be able get things wrong sometimes. Whatever the allure of perfection, the painful, complicated, messy real world is joyful and spacious enough for both community and individuality.
The next day, I travelled from this bubble gum pink world back to a time when life for most was nasty, brutish and short.
In the Medieval Pilgrimage and the Cult of Saints session the next day, Dr Michael Hahn, MA in Christian Spirituality programme leader, outlined how the quest for salvation sparked the development of elaborate hierarchies of saints, the relics of their possessions and bodies, and the shrines that developed in response to this demand.
Saints exist to work wonders, to be ambassadors of and objects of glory and devotion — both serving to boost one’s own insufficient merits. In their bid for salvation, the medieval faithful made great sacrifices to travel to shrines with relics which promised to hold and transmit saintly holiness.
There are hierarchies within each aspect of the cult of saints and in pilgrimages, starting with the saints themselves. Christ is at the top, then cascading down are those either canonized by the Pope from the late 12th century or conferred sainthood by equippollent canonization, which I learned means a shortcut to sainthood via popular demand.
Then there’s the hierarchy of the relics themselves. Those shrines with a whole body of an important saint could leverage their possession to gain power and influence over both the top of church hierarchy and the faithful masses. And any body part was more highly valued than an object which had contact with the saint’s body, though these, or indeed gifts brought from a shrine, offered a measure of saintly power as well.
Dr Hahn also explained how the medieval pilgrimage developed as an extension of those relics and were very different to the modern idea of pilgrimage. Unlike the fluffier contemporary version, with the promise of beautiful countryside and creature comforts, the medieval pilgrimage was about hardship and sacrifice, about going to the domain of demons, with its own hierarchy based on the level of sacrifice involved.
Two very different sessions. Both offer utterly fascinating critical analyses of cultural phenomena for a unique perspective on how humans have sought, and continue to seek, answers to the question: How to live a good life?
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Christine Nielsen-Craig is the Director of Marketing and Communication at Sarum College.
The modules held last week are part of postgraduate study programmes in Christian Spirituality and Theology, Imagination and Culture, run by Sarum College and validated by Winchester University. Dr Michael Hahn is the MA in Christian Spirituality programme leader. Dr Graeme Smith is the MA in Theology, Imagination and Culture programme leader.
Find out more about postgraduate programmes here by browsing the webpages on the programmes and joining us for a Taster Day onsite 18 May 2024 or online 8 July 2024
Forthcoming modules are:
3 to 6 June 2024
Erotic Desires: Gender, Sexuality and Spirituality (Christian Spirituality Programme)
15 to 18 July 2024
The Handmaid’s Tale: Texts and the Christian Tradition (Run jointly by the two programmes)
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