Women and the Supernatural: Agency, and Oppression at the Intersection of Gender and Religion in Reformation England

本研究将考察英国宗教改革时期的性别观念是如何通过我们现在所说的“超自然”现象刺激和促进宗教话语的。玩世不遇地拒绝了它的不合时宜的、历史上偶然的定义，超自然在这里是一种深思熟虑的构建，包含了广泛的实践，在改革时期，这些实践被不同地解释为正统的、异端的、无法解释的、神圣的、神秘的、循规成规的或颠覆性的——这些实践包括巫术、预言、精神占有、狡猾的女人、鬼魂、可怕的出生和上帝的干预。至关重要的是，超自然现象的集体镜头使这项研究能够追踪性别的线索——女性的代理、罪责、束缚和生活经历——贯穿了一个女性身份被教义和父权制控制的时期。与16和17世纪宗教话语的许多方面不同，见证或讨论超自然现象的简单行为被接受，并且是参与精神生活的不加歧视的方式，不受文盲、神学训练、物质或文化资本等社会经济障碍的阻碍。因此，超自然现象揭示了女性顺应和面对更广泛的宗教改革结构的多种方式，成为自愿的参与者、怀疑的人物、变革的推动者和压迫的受害者。性别和超自然现象之间的这种多方面的接触，是推动这项拟议研究的最紧迫问题的基础。性别和超自然之间的关系是什么？超自然是表达能动性和参与宗教生活的一种手段吗？因此，它是规避父权制度的一种手段吗？为什么女性特别适合超自然现象？是什么样的文化、社会、法律和神学环境导致了这种情况？

This research will examine how notions of gender in Reformation England stimulated and contributed toreligious discourse through what we now term 'supernatural' phenomena.Playfully rejecting its anachronistic, historically contingent definition, the supernatural here functions as adeliberate construct encompassing a broad range of practices which were, at the time of theReformation, varyingly interpreted as orthodox, heterodox, inexplicable, divine, mystical, conformist orsubversive - such practices include witchcraft, prophesy, spiritual possession, cunning women, ghosts,monstrous births and providential intervention. Crucially, the collective lens of the supernatural allowsthis research to trace the thread of gender - the agency, culpability, constriction and lived experiences ofwomen - throughout a period in which female identity was controlled by doctrine and patriarchy. Unlikemany aspects of religious discourse during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the simple acts ofbearing witness to or discussing the supernatural were accepted and indiscriminatory means ofparticipating in spiritual life, unencumbered by socioeconomic barriers such as illiteracy, theologicaltraining, and material or cultural capital.The supernatural, therefore, exposes the multiple methods by which women both conformed to andconfronted the wider structures of the Reformation, to become willing participants, figures of suspicion,agents of change and victims of suppression. Such multifaceted encounters between gender and thesupernatural underpin the most urgent questions driving this proposed study. What is the relationshipbetween gender and the supernatural? Was the supernatural a means of expressing agency andpartaking in religious life? Was it, therefore, a means of circumventing patriarchal systems? Why werewomen particularly suited to the supernatural? What were the cultural, social, legal, theologicalcircumstances that made this the case?