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

这项研究将考察英国宗教改革运动中的性别观念是如何通过我们现在所称的“超自然”现象来刺激和促进宗教话语的。这里的超自然现象戏谑地拒绝了它不合时宜的、历史上的偶然定义，这里的超自然概念作为一种深奥的构造包含了广泛的实践，在宗教改革时期，这些实践被不同地解释为正统、异端、莫名其妙、神圣、神秘、墨守成规或颠覆--这些实践包括巫术、预言、精神附身、狡猾的女人、鬼魂、怪物出生和天意干预。至关重要的是，超自然现象的集体视角使这项研究能够在整个女性身份被教条和父权制控制的时期追踪性别的线索--女性的机构、罪责、束缚和生活经历。与16世纪和17世纪宗教话语的许多方面不同，见证或讨论超自然的简单行为被接受，并且不受社会经济障碍，如文盲、神学培训和物质或文化资本的阻碍，一视同仁地参与精神生活。因此，超自然暴露了妇女通过多种方法顺应和对抗宗教改革的更广泛的结构，成为自愿的参与者、怀疑的人物、变革的推动者和镇压的受害者。性别和超自然之间的这种多方面的接触为这项拟议中的研究提供了最紧迫的问题。性别和超自然现象之间有什么关系？超自然是一种表达宗教生活和参与宗教生活的手段吗？因此，这是一种绕过父权制度的手段吗？为什么女人特别适合超自然的事物？造成这种情况的文化、社会、法律和神学环境是什么？

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?