Affiliation:
1. Department of Religious Studies, St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY 13617, USA
Abstract
This article offers a pedagogical approach to introducing undergraduate students to hagiology by comparing medieval sanctity to modern celebrity. The bodies of saints and celebrities are important loci for the transmission of sanctity or celebrity from a person to the public and for the continuity of identity. Examples include St. Faith, St. Cuthbert, Kim Kardashian, and Marilyn Monroe. Using a comparative method allows students who are non-religious to better apprehend the unfamiliar practices and beliefs around the cult of saints and relics.
Reference29 articles.
1. Brown, Peter (1982). The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity, University of Chicago Press.
2. Bynum, Caroline Walker (1992). Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion, Zone.
3. Colgrave, Bertram (1985). Two Lives of Saint Cuthbert: A Life by an Anonymous Monk of Lindisfarne and Bede’s Prose Life, Cambridge University Press.
4. Heavenly Images: The Statue of St. Foy of Conques and the Signification of the Medieval ‘Cult-Image’ in the West;Dahl;Acta ad Archaeologiam et Artium Historiam Pertinentia,1978
5. Englund, Lena (Celebrity Studies, 2023). Celebrity Myth-Making: From Marilyn M. to Kim K., Celebrity Studies, ahead-of-print.