I found Bynum so fascinating precisely because she avoids the sexual and
psychological reading of female mystics' texts and texts on them. It is
particularly interesting to compare Rudolph Bell's and Bynum's approaches to
the role of fasting in female mystics' spirituality. While Bell sees fasting
as a neurosis (as a Holy Anorexia), Bynum sees that fasting empowered female
mystics and was rather a form of self-control than an expression of
deprivation. It may, however, be asked whether Bynum is too positive about
women's options, but I have found her argumentation very refreshing, because
too many books, at least between lines, suggest that women were passive
victims of their circumstances and that their religious expression (such as
asceticism and mysticism) was just another manifestation of their suppressed
lives.
Nonetheless, it seems to me as a very reasonable goal to test the fame of
established big "gurus" like Bynum, because, as Stephen Carey suggests,
people start easily judging by fame rather by actual reading of books and
texts. This is especially common in our time, when we all are so burdened by
too much reading, and easily slip in talking about texts that we have heard
about as if we had actually read them.
With best, Maiju Lehmijoki-G.
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