Michele Lise Tarter
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198814221
- eISBN:
- 9780191851858
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198814221.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies
This chapter, focusing on transatlantic Quaker women’s autobiographical writings between 1650 and 1800, explores the ways in which these Spiritual Mothers prophetically performed and sustained George ...
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This chapter, focusing on transatlantic Quaker women’s autobiographical writings between 1650 and 1800, explores the ways in which these Spiritual Mothers prophetically performed and sustained George Fox’s calling for an embodied spirit theology. Faced with impending, male-inscribed censorship on their female body/text, these women resisted patriarchal control and emigrated to the ‘Holy Experiment’ of early America. Their separate and privatized Women’s Meetings became a dynamic network for channelling female prophecy and agency in the colonies. Quaker women established a radical literary tradition, locating autobiography as the new site of prophecy and the semiotic voice in the eighteenth century. Writing from the female body as from the body collective, these women thus created a ‘New Word’ and simultaneously expanded the boundaries of gender and prophecy in the ‘New World’.Less
This chapter, focusing on transatlantic Quaker women’s autobiographical writings between 1650 and 1800, explores the ways in which these Spiritual Mothers prophetically performed and sustained George Fox’s calling for an embodied spirit theology. Faced with impending, male-inscribed censorship on their female body/text, these women resisted patriarchal control and emigrated to the ‘Holy Experiment’ of early America. Their separate and privatized Women’s Meetings became a dynamic network for channelling female prophecy and agency in the colonies. Quaker women established a radical literary tradition, locating autobiography as the new site of prophecy and the semiotic voice in the eighteenth century. Writing from the female body as from the body collective, these women thus created a ‘New Word’ and simultaneously expanded the boundaries of gender and prophecy in the ‘New World’.
Kristianna Polder
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198814221
- eISBN:
- 9780191851858
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198814221.003.0011
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies
This chapter examines the radical matriarchal identity of Margaret Fell (1614–1702), an indispensable figure in early Quakerism who promoted, funded, defended, and monitored the growth of the ...
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This chapter examines the radical matriarchal identity of Margaret Fell (1614–1702), an indispensable figure in early Quakerism who promoted, funded, defended, and monitored the growth of the movement both in the north of England, where she was based, and across Great Britain. Fell’s identity as the ‘mother of Quakerism’ has been frequently associated with more apparently private roles, such as that of wife and mother. Fell instead lived as a Spiritual Mother in the context of the arrival of ‘the New Jerusalem’, an apocalyptic framework that challenged gendered social constraints and freed women from the curse of mother Eve. Various vignettes from Fell’s biography reveal matriarchal activities that were countercultural and politically assertive. Fell emerges as an autonomous and powerful mother, wife, and Spiritual Matriarch, free from the strictures of seventeenth-century society.Less
This chapter examines the radical matriarchal identity of Margaret Fell (1614–1702), an indispensable figure in early Quakerism who promoted, funded, defended, and monitored the growth of the movement both in the north of England, where she was based, and across Great Britain. Fell’s identity as the ‘mother of Quakerism’ has been frequently associated with more apparently private roles, such as that of wife and mother. Fell instead lived as a Spiritual Mother in the context of the arrival of ‘the New Jerusalem’, an apocalyptic framework that challenged gendered social constraints and freed women from the curse of mother Eve. Various vignettes from Fell’s biography reveal matriarchal activities that were countercultural and politically assertive. Fell emerges as an autonomous and powerful mother, wife, and Spiritual Matriarch, free from the strictures of seventeenth-century society.
Michele Lise Tarter and Catie Gill (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198814221
- eISBN:
- 9780191851858
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198814221.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies
There has never been an interdisciplinary collection of essays that focuses specifically on the women of the Quaker movement—their experiences and their voices, their bodies and their texts. This ...
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There has never been an interdisciplinary collection of essays that focuses specifically on the women of the Quaker movement—their experiences and their voices, their bodies and their texts. This book, an essential addition to the studies of Quakerism, religion, and gender, offers groundbreaking archival research and analysis about women Friends that ranges from the movement’s British origins to early American revolutions. The fourteen contributors illuminate the issues and challenges early Quaker women faced, addressing such varied topics as the feminization of religion; dissent and identity; transatlantic scribal and print culture; abolitionism and race; and the perception of women Friends by anti-Quaker spectators. Divided into three sections entitled ‘Revolutions’, ‘Disruptions’, and ‘Networks’, this collection explores the subversive and dynamic ways that Quaker women resisted persecution, asserted autonomy, and forged barriers through creative networks. It enhances and expands the position of Quaker women in the early transatlantic world, accentuating their difference from other religious orthodoxies—across time, across cultures, and across continents.Less
There has never been an interdisciplinary collection of essays that focuses specifically on the women of the Quaker movement—their experiences and their voices, their bodies and their texts. This book, an essential addition to the studies of Quakerism, religion, and gender, offers groundbreaking archival research and analysis about women Friends that ranges from the movement’s British origins to early American revolutions. The fourteen contributors illuminate the issues and challenges early Quaker women faced, addressing such varied topics as the feminization of religion; dissent and identity; transatlantic scribal and print culture; abolitionism and race; and the perception of women Friends by anti-Quaker spectators. Divided into three sections entitled ‘Revolutions’, ‘Disruptions’, and ‘Networks’, this collection explores the subversive and dynamic ways that Quaker women resisted persecution, asserted autonomy, and forged barriers through creative networks. It enhances and expands the position of Quaker women in the early transatlantic world, accentuating their difference from other religious orthodoxies—across time, across cultures, and across continents.
