Dr. Brad Herzog, associate professor of English at Southern Arkansas University, Magnolia, will present the results of his research to a faculty research seminar at 3:45 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 10, in room 211 of the Donald W. Reynolds Campus and Community Center.
Herzog’s research was “Opening Spaces for Women in Religious Discourse: Julian of Norwich’s Transformations of Christian Neoplatonism,” and was funded by a University research fellowship.
One of the first extant books written by a woman in English, Julian of Norwich’s “Showings” constitutes a remarkable literary and spiritual work. Transforming Augustine’s theology and the Christian Neoplatonic tradition, Julian clears women from blame for the fall, transforms Augustine’s notion of the soul’s imago dei, and recuperates the body and human sensuality.
For Augustine, the soul must make an inward Neoplatonic turn away from the physical world in order to find God, whom Augustine asserts is incorporeal. In contrast to Augustine, Julian refigures the body – or human sensuality – as the way to God through the passion. Ultimately, Julian elevates and exculpates women, unifies the passion and the incarnation, and portrays the suffering body as the way to God and Christ.
Herzog joined the Department of English and Foreign Languages at SAU in 1996. He earned his B.A. and M.A. from Brigham Young University and his Ph.D. from Texas Christian University.
