Copyright
Kevin R. Brine, Elena Ciletti; Henrike LähnemannPublished On
2010-07-01ISBN
Language
- English
Print Length
534 pages (xix + 514)Dimensions
Weight
Media
OCLC Number
702115347LCCN
2019452800BIC
- HRCG
- HBTB
BISAC
- REL006740
- MUS048000
- ART015000
LCC
- BS1735.55
Keywords
- Book of Judith
- Holofernes
- the Bible
- art history
- women's studies
- gender studies
- Christianity
- Judaism
- myth
- the Old Testament
- biblical literature
- bible studies
- Archaeology and Religion
- Visual Arts
- Theatre
- Women and Gender Studies
- Literature
- Literature: Comparative Literature
The Sword of Judith
Judith Studies Across the Disciplines
- Kevin R. Brine (editor)
- Elena Ciletti (editor)
- Henrike Lähnemann (editor)
The Book of Judith tells the story of a fictitious Jewish woman beheading Holofernes, the general of a powerful army, to free her people. The story has fascinated artists and authors for centuries, and is becoming a major field of research in its own right.
The Sword of Judith is the first multidisciplinary collection of essays to discuss representations of Judith throughout the centuries. Bringing together scholars from around the world, it transforms our understanding of Judith’s enduring story across a wide range of disciplines. The book includes sections on Judith in Christian, Jewish and secular textual traditions, as well as representations of Judith in art, music and theatre. The collection includes new archival source studies and the translation of unpublished manuscripts and texts previously unavailable in English.
Reviews
These essays, by presenting translations of unpublished manuscripts, analyzing new archival sources, and exploring Judith’s representation in narrative, poetry, art, music and theatre, demonstrate how Judith serves as a template for marking changing views of politics, ethics, gender roles and theology from the Patristic period to the nineteenth century.
Amy-Jill Levine
"The Sword of Judith: Judith Studies across the Disciplines ed. by Kevin R. Brine, Elena Ciletti and Henrike Lähnemann". Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies & Gender Issues (1565-5288), vol. 24, 2013.
Additional Resources
A vast collection of images of Judith and Holofernes is available on ARTstor. Please note that the ARTstor collection requires institutional access.
The New York Public Library is host to The Judith Project, which is a multidisciplinary collaborative effort under the academic guidance of a distinguished panel of Judith scholars from around the world. The mission of The Judith Project is to enhance scholarship on The Book of Judith and on the theme of Judith and Holofernes in Western culture from antiquity to the present. The project's website contains more information, together with a comprehensive bibliographic reference tool.
Contents
The Judith Project
(pp. 3–21)- Kevin R. Brine
The Jewish Textual Traditions
(pp. 23–39)- Deborah Levine Gera
Judith in the Christian Tradition
(pp. 41–65)- Elena Ciletti
- Henrike Lähnemann
Holofernes's Canopy in the Septuagint
(pp. 71–80)- Barbara Schmitz
Shorter Medieval Hebrew Tales of Judith
(pp. 81–95)- Deborah Levine Gera
- Susan Weingarten
Shalom bar Abraham's Book of Judith in Yiddish
(pp. 127–150)- Ruth von Bernuth
- Michael Terry
- Marc Mastrangelo
Judith in Late Anglo-Saxon England
(pp. 169–196)- Tracey-Anne Cooper
- John Nassichuk
The Example of Judith in Early Modern French Literature
(pp. 213–225)- Kathleen M. Llewellyn
- Robert Cummings
The Cunning of Judith in Late Medieval German Texts
(pp. 239–258)- Henrike Lähnemann
- Janet Bartholomew
Judith, Jael, and Humilitas in the Speculum Virginum
(pp. 275–290)- Elizabeth Bailey
- Roger J. Crum
Donatello's Judith as the Emblem of God's Chosen People
(pp. 307–324)- Sarah Blake McHam
Costuming Judith in Italian Art of the Sixteenth Century
(pp. 325–343)- Diane Apostolos-Cappadona
- Elena Ciletti
Judith, Music, and Female Patrons in Early Modern Italy
(pp. 371–383)- Kelley Harness
Judith in Baroque Oratorio
(pp. 385–396)- David Marsh
Judith in the Italian Unification Process, 1800-1900
(pp. 397–409)- Paolo Bernardini
Marcello and Peri's Giuditta (1860)
(pp. 411–430)- Alexandre Lhâa
- Jann Pasler
Judith and the "Jew-Eaters" in German Volkstheater
(pp. 453–467)- Gabrijela Mecky Zaragoza
Contributors
Kevin R. Brine
(editor)Kevin R. Brine, the founder and director of the Judith Project is an independent scholar and visual artist. He is Member of the Board of Overseers of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences of New York University, and the co-founder, with Clifford Siskin of The Re-Enlightenment Project at New York University and The New York Public Library. Mr. Brine co-edited, with Garland Cannon, Object of Enquiry: The Life, Contributions and Influence of Sir William Jones (1746–1797) (1995). Mr Brine's paintings are published in Kevin R. Brine: The Porch of the Caryatids: Drawings, Paintings and Sculptures (2006).
Elena Ciletti
(editor)Elena Ciletti is Professor of Art History at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York. Her research interests include Italian patronage and art from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. She has contributed articles on images of Judith to Refiguring Woman: Perspectives on Gender and the Italian Renaissance (1991) and The Artemisia Files (2005). She is working on a book-length study of the iconography of Judith in Catholic Reformation culture.
Henrike Lähnemann
(editor)Henrike Lähnemann holds the Chair of German Studies at Newcastle University. Her main areas of research are medieval German literature in the Latin context, manuscript studies and the interface of text and image. In 2006, she published a monograph on medieval German versions of the Book of Judith (Hystoria Judith. Deutsche Judithdichtungen vom 11. bis zum 16. Jahrhundert).