Best Selling Books by Barbara Newman

'Newman analyzes carefully and critically the unique contributions that Hildegard, a 12th-century abbess, mystic and scientist, made to the theology of her age, while at the same time successfully situating her within that very period.' - Alice J. Laffey, R.S.M., America

Contrary to popular belief, the medieval religious imagination did not restrict itself to masculine images of God but envisaged the divine in multiple forms. In fact, the God of medieval Christendom was the Father of only one Son but many daughters—including Lady Philosophy, Lady Love, Dame Nature, and Eternal Wisdom. God and the Goddesses is a study in medieval imaginative theology, examining the numerous daughters of God who appear in allegorical poems, theological fictions, and the visions of holy women. We have tended to understand these deities as mere personifications and poetic figures, but that, Barbara Newman contends, is a mistake. These goddesses are neither pagan survivals nor versions of the Great Goddess constructed in archetypal psychology, but distinctive creations of the Christian imagination. As emanations of the Divine, mediators between God and the cosmos, embodied universals, and ravishing objects of identification and desire, medieval goddesses transformed and deepened Christendom's concept of God, introducing religious possibilities beyond the ambit of scholastic theology and bringing them to vibrant imaginative life. Building a bridge between secular and religious conceptions of allegorized female power, Newman advances such questions as whether medieval writers believed in their goddesses and, if so, in what manner. She investigates whether the personifications encountered in poetic fictions can be distinguished from those that appear in religious visions and questions how medieval writers reconcile their statements about the multiple daughters of God with orthodox devotion to the Son of God. Furthermore, she examines why forms of feminine God-talk that strike many Christians today as subversive or heretical did not threaten medieval churchmen. Weaving together such disparate texts as the writings of Latin and vernacular poets, medieval schoolmen, liturgists, and male and female mystics and visionaries, God and the Goddesses is a direct challenge to modern theologians to reconsider the role of goddesses in the Christian tradition.

How, Barbara Newman asks, did the myth of the separable heart take such a firm hold in the Middle Ages, from lovers exchanging hearts with one another to mystics exchanging hearts with Jesus? What special traits gave both saints and demoniacs their ability to read minds? Why were mothers who died in childbirth buried in unconsecrated ground? Each of these phenomena, as diverse as they are, offers evidence for a distinctive medieval idea of the person in sharp contrast to that of the modern "subject" of "individual." Starting from the premise that the medieval self was more permeable than its modern counterpart, Newman explores the ways in which the self's porous boundaries admitted openness to penetration by divine and demonic spirits and even by other human beings. She takes up the idea of "coinherence," a state familiarly expressed in the amorous and devotional formula "I in you and you in me," to consider the theory and practice of exchanging the self with others in five relational contexts of increasing intimacy. Moving from the outside in, her chapters deal with charismatic teachers and their students, mind-reading saints and their penitents, lovers trading hearts, pregnant mothers who metaphorically and literally carry their children within, and women and men in the throes of demonic obsession. In a provocative conclusion, she sketches some of the far-reaching consequences of this type of personhood by drawing on comparative work in cultural history, literary criticism, anthropology, psychology, and ethics. The Permeable Self offers medievalists new insight into the appeal and dangers of the erotics of pedagogy; the remarkable influence of courtly romance conventions on hagiography and mysticism; and the unexpected ways that pregnancy—often devalued in mothers—could be positively ascribed to men, virgins, and God. The half-forgotten but vital idea of coinherence is of relevance far beyond medieval studies, however, as Newman shows how it reverberates in such puzzling phenomena as telepathy, the experience of heart transplant recipients who develop relationships with their deceased donors, the phenomenon of psychoanalytic transference, even the continuities between ideas of demonic possession and contemporary understandings of obsessive-compulsive disorder. In The Permeable Self Barbara Newman once again confirms her status as one of our most brilliant and thought-provoking interpreters of the Middle Ages.

Provides a close-up look at the terrorist group Hezbollah, the so-called "party of God," discussing its training, organization, goals, and capabilities to conduct terrorist operations throughout the United States through the use of sleeper cells, and examines efforts to combat Hezbollah on the homefront. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.

Why did hagiographers of the late Middle Ages praise mothers for abandoning small children? How did a group of female mystics come to define themselves as "apostles to the dead" and end by challenging God's right to damn? Why did certain heretics around 1300 venerate a woman as the Holy Spirit incarnate and another as the Angelic Pope? In From Virile Woman to WomanChrist, Barbara Newman asks these and other questions to trace a gradual and ambiguous transition in the gender strategies of medieval religious women. An egalitarian strain in early Christianity affirmed that once she asserted her commitment to Christ through a vow of chastity, monastic profession, or renunciation of family ties, a woman could become "virile," or equal to a man. While the ideal of the "virile woman" never disappeared, another ideal slowly evolved in medieval Christianity. By virtue of some gender-related trait--spotless virginity, erotic passion, the capacity for intense suffering, the ability to imagine a feminine aspect of the Godhead--a devout woman could be not only equal, but superior to men; without becoming male, she could become a "womanChrist," imitating and representing Christ in uniquely feminine ways. Rooted in women's concrete aspirations and sufferings, Newman's "womanChrist" model straddles the bounds of orthodoxy and heresy to illuminate the farther reaches of female religious behavior in the Middle Ages. From Virile Woman to WomanChrist will generate compelling discussion in the fields of medieval literature and history, history of religion, theology, and women's studies.

Newman and Newman take a chronological approach to the study of the life span, drawing on the psychosocial theory of Erik Erikson to provide a conceptual framework for the text. Newman and Newman address physical, intellectual, social, and emotional growth in all life stages, focusing on the idea that development results from the interdependence of these areas at every stage, and placing special emphasis on optimal development through life. Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version.

Can the Letters of Two Lovers be the previously lost love letters of Abelard and Heloise? Making Love in the Twelfth Century presents a new literary translation of the collection, along with a full commentary and two extended essays that parse its literary and intellectual contexts and chart the course of the doomed affair.

Children love to listen to stories. Now their favorite Dorling Kindersley childrenOtilde;s books are available in convenient book-and-tape packages that are perfect for the car or anywhere. With more than 60 minutes of audio on each tape, these packages will be favorites of children and parents alike. The Illustrated Book of Ballet Stories features narration by Darcey Bussell, principal dancer with LondonOtilde;s Royal Ballet, with musical selections from each ballet. Also Available with CD. The Illustrated Book of Ballet Stories features narration by Darcey Bussell, principal dancer with LondonOtilde;s Royal Ballet, with musical selections from each ballet. Also Available with CD.

“Frauenlob” was the stage name of Heinrich von Meissen (c. 1260–1318), a medieval German poet-minstrel. A famous and controversial figure in his day, Frauenlob (meaning “praise of ladies”) exercised a strong influence on German literature into the eighteenth century. This book introduces the poet to English-speaking readers with a fresh poetic translation of his masterpiece, the Marienleich—a virtuosic poem of more than 500 lines in praise of the Virgin Mary. Barbara Newman, known for her pathbreaking translation of Hildegard of Bingen’s Symphonia, brilliantly captures the fervent eroticism of Frauenlob’s language. More than the mother of Jesus, the Lady of Frauenlob’s text is a celestial goddess, the eternal partner of the Trinity. Like Christ himself she is explicitly said to have two natures, human and divine. Frauenlob lets the Lady speak for herself in an unusual first-person text of self-revelation, crafted from the Song of Songs, the Biblical wisdom books, the Apocalypse, and a wide array of secular materials ranging from courtly romance to Aristotelian philosophy. Included with the book is a CD recording of the Marienleich by the noted ensemble Sequentia, directed by Benjamin Bagby and the late Barbara Thornton. The surviving music is the composer’s own, reconstructed from fragmentary manuscript sources. Accompanying Newman’s translation is a facing-page edition of the German text, detailed commentary, and a critical study presenting the most thorough discussion to date of Frauenlob’s oeuvre, social context, philosophical ideas, sources, language, music, and influence. Rescuing a long forgotten medieval masterpiece, Frauenlob’s Song of Songs will fascinate students and scholars of the Middle Ages as well as scholars, performers, and connoisseurs of early music.

My People: The Story of a Virginia Family presents the history of Barbara Newman's American ancestors -- from the earliest colonists who came to Richmond, Charlottesville, and the Shenandoah Valley more than three hundred years ago, to their descendants who fought, suffered, and died for the Confederacy in the nineteenth century. Her twentieth-century grandparents and parents prospered in the Roaring Twenties, endured the calamity of the Great Depression, then gave their all to the Second World War and the Korean Conflict. Newman also brings to life the African-Americans, first under slavery and then under Jim Crow segregation, who worked for her ancestors. Slave-owning planters and poor white farmers, enslaved and free black people, soldiers, lawyers, clerks, teachers, seamstresses, and housewives -- all their stories are included in this rich history of Newman's Virginia ancestors.

Contains primary source material.

(Limelight). A critic and writer on dance for well over twenty years, Barbara Newman has gone in search of teachers and coaches, directors, choreographers and stagers former dancers who had turned the focus of their own experience on others to explain the state of ballet today. Among leaders of the dance world the author interviewed were Suki Schorer, Helgi Tomasson, Mark Morris, Violette Verdy and 14 other artists whose work she knew and respected, most of them active outside of New York and London. Newman is not interested in dance as an aesthetic abstraction, and the people who answered her questions were not speaking theoretically. On the contrary, her speculation and their responses bring an elusive subject down to earth, illuminating a process that reaches back in history and forward to today, though its dreams are of a world no one can imagine.

FOUR GIRLS. FOUR DIRECTIONS. ONE PURPOSE. The earth is gasping for breath; its only hope is the sacred Codes of Nature. But they've been stolen—snatched by a giant raven during a raging storm. SOPHIA ROSE, Guardian of Mother Earth, has summoned MAIA from the North to lead FALCON, AVA, and YUE, on a quest to find the Codes and save the planet. But the odds are against the young rescuers. Time is running out: the bees are dying, the oceans are filled with plastic—and a dark energy lurks in the shadows, threatening their search. Powered by the elements of earth, air, fire and water, messages from mystical dreamcatchers, guidance from the ancestors, and wisdom from the land—this fierce sisterhood must rely on courage, mythic horses, and each other if they are to succeed. Ultimately, their epic adventure takes them on a daring journey into a deeper understanding of their own unique place in the universe. The Dreamcatcher Codes builds bridges, unity, and hope, and illuminates two critical issues of our time: climate change and girls claiming their voices and vital place in the world.

The sacred and the secular in medieval literature have too often been perceived as opposites, or else relegated to separate but unequal spheres. In Medieval Crossover: Reading the Secular against the Sacred, Barbara Newman offers a new approach to the many ways that sacred and secular interact in medieval literature, arguing that (in contrast to our own cultural situation) the sacred was the normative, unmarked default category against which the secular always had to define itself and establish its niche. Newman refers to this dialectical relationship as "crossover"—which is not a genre in itself, but a mode of interaction, an openness to the meeting or even merger of sacred and secular in a wide variety of forms. Newman sketches a few of the principles that shape their interaction: the hermeneutics of "both/and," the principle of double judgment, the confluence of pagan material and Christian meaning in Arthurian romance, the rule of convergent idealism in hagiographic romance, and the double-edged sword in parody. Medieval Crossover explores a wealth of case studies in French, English, and Latin texts that concentrate on instances of paradox, collision, and convergence. Newman convincingly and with great clarity demonstrates the widespread applicability of the crossover concept as an analytical tool, examining some very disparate works. These include French and English romances about Lancelot and the Grail; the mystical writing of Marguerite Porete (placed in the context of lay spirituality, lyric traditions, and the Romance of the Rose); multiple examples of parody (sexually obscene, shockingly anti-Semitic, or cleverly litigious); and René of Anjou's two allegorical dream visions. Some of these texts are scarcely known to medievalists; others are rarely studied together. Newman's originality in her choice of these primary works will inspire new questions and set in motion new fields of exploration for medievalists working in a large variety of disciplines, including literature, religious studies, history, and cultural studies.

Oorspronkelijke uitgave: 1151: Bingen, Hildegard van.