Academic literature on the topic 'Women in Christianity Europe History'

The historical tapestry of Medieval Europe was woven together with numerous profoundly influential threads. One of the most fundamental woven threads in the tapestry of this era was the thread of religion, the church and the Christian faith. An intrinsic part to this religious thread in the Medieval tapestry was the immensely profoundly transforming event of the Great Schism in 1054. The Great Schism in its own religious right was one of the most single profoundly fundamental and influential events that resulted in the transformation of a religion, culture and history. Moreover the Great Schism laid the foundation, paved the way and was the religious prequel of Martin’s Luther’s Protestant Reformation. Thus the Great Schism of 1054 had extensive, influential political, cultural, social, religious and historical consequences. The Great Schism’s legacy of disunion would be evident in the church, the Christian faith and religion for many generations to come.

RÉSUMÉLe principal objectif de cet article est d’encourager une approche plus large, supraconfessionnelle, du mariage et de la famille à l’époque moderne. La conjugalité a été “désacralisée” par les réformateurs protestants du 16e siècle. Martin Luther, parmi d’autres, a refusé le statut de sacrement au mariage, tout en valorisant celui-ci comme une arme contre le péché. En réaction, le concile de Trente a réaffirmé avec force que le mariage est bien un des sept sacrements chrétiens. Mais, promouvant la supériorité du célibat, l’Église catholique n’a jamais beaucoup insisté sur les vertus de la vie et de la piété familiales avant le 19e siècle. En parallèle, les historiens décèlent des signes de “sacralisation” de la famille protestante à partir du 16e siècle. Leurs conclusions doivent être relativisées à la lumière de recherches plus récentes et plus critiques, centrées sur les rapports et les représentations de genre. Elles peuvent néanmoins inspirer une étude élargie et comparative, inexistante dans l’historiographie traditionnelle, des réalités et des perceptions de la famille chrétienne au-delà des frontières confessionnelles.MOTS-CLÉ: Époque Moderne, mariage, famille, protestantisme, Concile de TrenteABSTRACTThe main purpose of this paper is to encourage a broader supra-confessional approach to the history of marriage and the family in the Early Modern era. Wedlock was “desacralized” by the Protestant reformers of the 16th century. Martin Luther, among others, denied the sacramental status of marriage but valued it as a weapon against sin. In reaction, the Council of Trent reinforced marriage as one of the seven sacraments. But the Catholic Church, which promoted the superiority of celibacy, did little to defend the virtues of family life and piety before the 19th century. In parallel, historians have identified signs of a “sacralization” of the Protestant family since the 16th century. These findings must be relativized in the light of newer and more critical studies on gender relations and representations. But they can still inspire a broader comparative study, non-existent in traditional confessional historiography, of the realities and perceptions of the Christian family beyond denominational borders.KEY WORDS: Early Modern Christianity, marriage, family, Protestantism, Council of Trent BIBLIOGRAPHIEAdair, R., Courtship, Illegitimacy and Marriage in Early Modern England, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1996.Beaulande-Barraud, V., “Sexualité, mariage et procréation. Discours et pratiques dans l’Église médiévale (XIIIe-XVe siècles)”, dans Vanderpelen-Diagre, C., & Sägesser, C., (coords.), La Sainte Famille. Sexualité, filiation et parentalité dans l’Église catholique, Problèmes d’Histoire des Religions, 24, Bruxelles, Éditions de l’Université de Bruxelles, 2017, pp. 19-29.Bels, P., Le mariage des protestants français jusqu’en 1685. Fondements doctrinaux et pratique juridique, Paris, Librairie générale de droit et de jurisprudence, 1968.Benedict, P., Christ’s Churches Purely Reformed. A Social History of Calvinism, New Haven/London, Yale University Press, 2002.Bernos, M., “Le concile de Trente et la sexualité. La doctrine et sa postérité”, dansBernos, M., (coord.), Sexualité et religions, Paris, Cerf, 1988, pp. 217-239.Bernos, M., Femmes et gens d’Église dans la France classique (XVIIe-XVIIIe siècle), Paris, Éditions du Cerf, Histoire religieuse de la France, 2003.Bernos, M., “L’Église et l’amour humain à l’époque moderne”, dans Bernos, M., Les sacrements dans la France des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. Pastorale et vécu des fidèles, Aix-en-Provence, Publications de l’Université de Provence, 2007, pp. 245-264.Bologne, J.-C., Histoire du mariage en Occident, Paris, Lattès/Hachette Littératures, 1995.Burghartz, S., Zeiten der Reinheit – Orte der Unzucht. Ehe und Sexualität in Basel während der Frühen Neuzeit, Paderborn, Schöningh, 1999.Calvin, J., Institution de la Religion chrétienne (1541), édition critique en deux vols., Millet, O., (ed.), Genève, Librairie Droz, 2008, vol. 2, pp. 1471-1479.Carillo, F., “Famille”, dans Gisel, P., (coord.), Encyclopédie du protestantisme, Paris, PUF/Quadrige, 2006, p. 489.Christin, O., & Krumenacker, Y., (coords.), Les protestants à l’époque moderne. Une approche anthropologique, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2017.Corbin, A., Courtine, J.-J., et Vigarello, G., (coords.), Histoire du corps, vol. 1: De la Renaissance aux Lumières, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 2005.Corbin, A., Courtine, J.-J., et Vigarello, G., (coords.), Histoire des émotions, vol. 1: De l’Antiquité aux Lumières, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 2016.Cristellon, C., “Mixed Marriages in Early Modern Europe“, in Seidel Menchi, S., (coord.), Marriage in Europe 1400-1800, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2016, chapter 10.Demos, J., A Little Commonwealth: Family Life in Plymouth Colony, New York, 1970.Flandrin, J.-L., Familles. Parenté, maison, sexualité dans l’ancienne société, Paris, Seuil, 1976/1984.Forclaz, B., “Le foyer de la discorde? Les mariages mixtes à Utrecht au XVIIe siècle”, Annales. Histoire, Sciences sociales (2008/5), pp. 1101-1123.Forster, M. R., Kaplan, B. J., (coords.), Piety and Family in Early Modern Europe. Essays in Honour of Steven Ozment, St. Andrews Studies in Reformation History, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2005.Forster, M. R., “Domestic Devotions and Family Piety in German Catholicism”, inForster, M. R., Kaplan, B. J., (coords.), Piety and Family in Early Modern Europe. Essays in Honour of Steven Ozment, St. Andrews Studies in Reformation History, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2005, pp. 97-114.François W., & Soen, V. (coords.), The Council of Trent: Reform and Controversy in Europe and Beyond, 1545-1700, Göttingen, Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 2018.Gautier, S., “Mariages de pasteurs dans le Saint-Empire luthérien: de la question de l’union des corps à la formation d’un corps pastoral ‘exemplaire et plaisant à Dieu’”, dans Christin, O., & Krumenacker, Y., (coords.), Les protestants à l’époque moderne. Une approche anthropologique, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2017, pp. 505-517.Gautier, S., “Identité, éloge et image de soi dans les sermons funéraires des foyers pastoraux luthériens aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles”, Europa moderna. Revue d’histoire et d’iconologie, n. 3 (2012), pp. 54-71.Goody, J., The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe, Cambridge, 1983; L’évolution de la famille et du mariage en Europe, Paris, Armand Colin, 1985/2012.Hacker, P., Faith in Luther. Martin Luther and the Origin of Anthropocentric Religion, Emmaus Academic, 2017.Harrington, J. F., Reordering Marriage and Society in Reformation Germany, Cambridge, 1995.Hendrix, S. H., & Karant-Nunn, S. C., (coords.), Masculinity in the Reformation Era, Kirksville, Truman State University Press, 2008.Hendrix, S. H., “Christianizing Domestic Relations: Women and Marriage in Johann Freder’s Dialogus dem Ehestand zu ehren”, Sixteenth Century Journal, 23 (1992), pp. 251-266.Ingram, M., Church Courts. Sex and Marriage in England 1570-1640, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987.Jacobsen, G., “Women, Marriage and magisterial Reformation: the case of Malmø”, in Sessions, K. C., & Bebb, P. N., (coords.), Pietas et Societas: New Trends in Reformation Social History, Kirksville, Sixteenth Century Journal Press, 1985, pp. 57-78.Jedin, H., Crise et dénouement du concile de Trente, Paris, Desclée, 1965.Jelsma, A., “‘What Men and Women are meant for’: on marriage and family at the time of the Reformation”, in Jelsma, A., Frontiers of the Reformation. Dissidence and Orthodoxy in Sixteenth Century Europe, Ashgate, 1998, Routledge, 2016, EPUB, chapter 8.Karant-Nunn, S. C., “Une oeuvre de chair: l’acte sexuel en tant que liberté chrétienne dans la vie et la pensée de Martin Luther”, dans Christin, O., &Krumenacker, Y., (coords.), Les protestants à l’époque moderne. Une approche anthropologique, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2017, pp. 467-485.Karant-Nunn, S. C., The Reformation of Feeling: Shaping the Religious Emotions in Early Modern Germany, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010.Karant-Nunn, S. C., “The emergence of the pastoral family in the German Reformation: the parsonage as a site of socio-religious change”, in Dixon, C. S., & Schorn-Schütte, L., (coords.), The Protestant Clergy of Early Modern Europe, Basingstoke, Palgrave/Macmillan, 2003, pp. 79-99.Karant-Nunn, S. C., “Reformation Society, Women and the Family”, in Pettegree, A., (coord.), The Reformation World, London/New York, Routledge, 2000, pp. 433-460.Karant-Nunn, S. C., “Marriage, Defenses of”, in Hillerbrand, H. J., (coord.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1996, vol. 2, p. 24.Kingdon, R., Adultery and Divorce in Calvin’s Geneva, Harvard University Press, 1995.Krumenacker, Y., “Protestantisme: le mariage n’est plus un sacrement”, dans Mariages, catalogue d’exposition, Archives municipales de Lyon, Lyon, Olivétan, 2017.Le concile de Trente, 2e partie (1551-1563), vol. XI de l’Histoire des conciles oecuméniques, Paris, (Éditions de l’Orante, 1981), Fayard, 2005, pp. 441-455.Les Decrets et Canons touchant le mariage, publiez en la huictiesme session du Concile de Trente, souz nostre sainct pere le Pape Pie quatriesme de ce nom, l’unziesme iour de novembre, 1563, Paris, 1564.Luther, M., “Sermon sur l’état conjugal”, dans OEuvres, I, Paris, Gallimard/La Pléiade, 1999, pp. 231-240.Luther, M., “Du mariage”, dans Prélude sur la captivité babylonienne de l’Église (1520), dans OEuvres, vol. I, édition publiée sous la direction de M. Lienhard et M. Arnold, Paris, Gallimard/La Pléiade, 1999, pp. 791-805.Luther, M., De la vie conjugale, dans OEuvres, I, Paris, Gallimard/La Pléiade, 1999, pp. 1147-1179.Mentzer, R., “La place et le rôle des femmes dans les Églises réformées”, Archives de sciences sociales des religions, 113 (2001), pp. 119-132.Morgan, E. S., The Puritan Family. Religion and Domestic Relations in Seventeenth-Century New England, (1944), New York, Harper, 1966.O’Reggio, T., “Martin Luther on Marriage and Family”, 2012, Faculty Publications, Paper 20, Andrews University, http://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/church-history-pubs/20. (consulté le 15 décembre 2018).Ozment, S., When Fathers Ruled. Family Life in Reformation Europe, Studies in Cultural History, Harvard University Press, 1983.Reynolds, P. L., How Marriage became One of the Sacrements. The Sacramental Theology of Marriage from the Medieval Origins to the Council of Trent, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2016/2018.Roper, L., Martin Luther. Renegade and Prophet, London, Vintage, 2016.Roper, L., The Holy Household: Women and Morals in Reformation Augsburg, Oxford Studies in Social History, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1989.Roper, L., “Going to Church and Street: Weddings in Reformation Augsburg”, Past & Present, 106 (1985), pp. 62-101.Safley, T. M., “Marriage”, in Hillerbrand, H. J., (coord.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1996, vol. 3, pp. 18-23.Safley, T. M., “Family”, in Hillerbrand, H. J., (coord.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1996, vol. 2, pp. 93-98.Safley, T. M., “Protestantism, divorce and the breaking of the modern family”, dans Sessions, K. C., & Bebb, P. N., (coords.), Pietas et Societas: New Trends inReformation Social History, Kirksville, Sixteenth Century Journal Press, 1985, pp. 35-56.Safley, T. M., Let No Man Put Asunder: The Control of Marriage in the German Southwest. A Comparative Study, 1550-1600, Kirksville, Sixteenth Century Journal Press, 1984.Seidel Menchi, S., (coord.), Marriage in Europe 1400-1800, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2016.Stone, L., The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500-1800, New York, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1977.Strauss, G., Luther’s House of Learning, Baltimore/London, 1978.Thomas, R., “Éduquer au mariage par l’image dans les Provinces-Unies du XVIIe siècle: les livres illustrés de Jacob Cats”, Les Cahiers du Larhra, dossier sur Images et Histoire, 2012, pp. 113-144.Vanderpelen-Diagre, C., & Sägesser, C., (coords.), La Sainte Famille. Sexualité, filiation et parentalité dans l’Église catholique, Problèmes d’Histoire des Religions, 24,Bruxelles, Éditions de l’Université de Bruxelles, 2017.Walch, A., La spiritualité conjugale dans le catholicisme français, XVIe-XXe siècle, Paris, Le Cerf, 2002.Watt, J. R., The Making of Modern Marriage: Matrimonial Control and the Rise of Sentiment in Neuchâtel, Ithaca, 1992.Weis, M., “La ‘Sainte Famille’ inexistante? Le mariage selon le concile de Trente (1563) et à l’époque des Réformes”, dans Vanderpelen-Diagre, C., & Sägesser, C., (coords.), La Sainte Famille. Sexualité, filiation et parentalité dans l’Église catholique, Problèmes d’Histoire des Religions, 24, Bruxelles, Éditions de l’Université deBruxelles, 2017, pp. 31-40.Westphal, S., Schmidt-Voges, I., & Baumann, A., (coords.), Venus und Vulcanus. Ehe und ihre Konflikte in der Frühen Neuzeit, München, Oldenbourg Verlag, 2011.Wiesner, M. E., Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe, Cambridge, 1993.Wiesner, M. E., “Studies of Women, the Family and Gender”, in Maltby, W. S., (coord.), Reformation Europe: A Guide to Research, Saint Louis, 1992, pp. 181-196.Wiesner-Hanks, M. E., “Women”, in Hillerbrand, H. J., (coord.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1996, vol. 4, pp. 290-298.Williams, G. H., The Radical Reformation, (1962), 3e ed., Truman State University Press, 2000, pp. 755-798Wunder, H., “He is the Sun. She is the Moon”: Women in Early Modern Germany, Harvard University Press, 1998.Yates, W., “The Protestant View of Marriage”, Journal of Ecumenical Studies, 22 (1985), pp. 41-54.

Throughout 2017, Protestants around the world will celebrate five hundred years of history. Although for several centuries the Protestant movement was based in Europe, then North America, from its Western homelands it eventually spread all over the world. In 2017 there are 560 million Protestants found in nearly all the world’s 234 countries. Of these 560 million, only 16 percent are in Europe, with 41 percent in Africa, a figure projected to reach 53 percent by 2050. The article also presents the latest statistics related to global Christianity and its mission.

The Christianisation of eastern Europe started later than in western Europe and faced challenges not faced by the West in late antiquity. In those eastern lands occupied by Slavs and others, formerly under control of the Byzantines or others, the process of re- Christianising those lands and bringing Christianity for the first time to the occupiers, was done gradually and often with cultural concessions, like the preservation of language. In Bulgaria there was an acceptance of Christianity in former Byzantine territory often associated with increasing political ties. In Frankish lands, however, where there was a push for Christianisation there was often more conflict. The pace of this increased in the ninth century with Cyril and Methodius as missionaries, whose new style of spreading Christianity and the development of a written Slavic language brought permanent success.

Outrageous women, outrageous god. Women in the first two generations of Christianity. By Ross Saunders. Pp. x+182. Alexandria, NSW: E. J. Dwyer, 1996. $10 (paper). 0 85574 278 XMontanism. Gender, authority and the new prophecy. By Christine Trevett. Pp. xiv+299. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. £37.50. 0 521 41182 3God's Englishwomen. Seventeenth-century radical sectarian writing and feminist criticism. By Hilary Hinds. Pp. vii+264. Manchester–New York: Manchester University Press, 1996. £35 (cloth), £14.99 (paper). 0 7190 4886 9; 0 7190 4887 7Women and religion in medieval and Renaissance Italy. Edited by Daniel Bornstein and Roberto Rusconi, translated by Margery J. Schneider. (Women in Culture and Society.) Pp. x+334 incl. 11 figs. Chicago–London: The University of Chicago Press, 1996. (first publ. as Mistiche e devote nell'Italia tardomedievale, Liguori Editore, 1992). £39.95 ($50) (cloth), £13.50 ($16.95) (paper). 0 226 06637 1; 0 226 06639 8The virgin and the bride. Idealized womanhood in late antiquity. By Kate Cooper. Pp. xii+180. Cambridge, Mass.–London: Harvard University Press, 1996. £24.95. 0 674 93949 2St Augustine on marriage and sexuality. Edited by Elizabeth A. Clark. (Selections from the Fathers of the Church, 1.) Pp. xi+112. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996. £23.95 (cloth), £11.50 (paper). 0 8132 0866 1; 0 8132 0867 XGender, sex and subordination in England, 1500–1800. By Anthony Fletcher. Pp. xxii+442+40 plates. New Haven–London: Yale University Press, 1995. £25. 0 300 06531 0Empress and handmaid. On nature and gender in the cult of the Virgin Mary. By Sarah Jane Boss. Pp. x+253+9 plates. London–New York: Cassell, 2000. £45 (cloth), £19.99 (paper). 0 304 33926 1; 0 304 70781 3‘You have stept out of your place’. A history of women and religion in America. By Susan Hill Lindley. Pp. xi+500. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1996. $35. 0 664 22081 9The position of women within Christianity might well be described as paradoxical. The range of practices in the early Church with regard to women, leadership and ministry indicates that this was the case from the beginning, and the legacy of conflicting biblical texts about the role of women – Galatians. iii. 28 versus 1 Corinthians xi. 3 and Ephesians v. 22–3 for example – has, perhaps, made that paradoxical position inevitable ever since. It might be argued, then, that the history of Christianity illustrates the working out of that paradox, as women have sought to rediscover or remain true to what they have seen as a strand of radically egalitarian origins for Christianity which has been subsumed by the dominant patriarchal structure and ideology of the Church. The tension of this paradox has been played out when women have struggled to act upon that thread of egalitarianism and yet remain within Churches that have been (and, it could be argued, remain) ‘patriarchally’ structured.

This thesis examines the spiritual lives of eighteenth-century English women through an analysis of their personal writings. It explores the manuscripts of religious women who practised their faith by writing letters, diaries, poetry, and other highly personal texts—texts that give unique access to the interior, spiritual lives of their authors. Concerned not only with the individual meaning of those writings but with their communal meanings, it argues that women’s informal writing, written within personal relationships, acted to undergird, guide, and indeed shape religious communities in vital and unexplored ways. Through an exploration of various significant personal relationships, both intra- and inter-generationally, this thesis demonstrates the multiple ways in which women were active in ‘writing religious communities’. The women discussed here belonged to communities that habitually communicated through personal writing. At the same time, their acts of writing were creative acts, powerful to build and shape religious communities: these women wrote religious community. A series of interweaving case studies guide my analysis and discussion. The thesis focuses on Catherine Talbot (1721–70), Anne Steele (1717–78), and Ann Bolton (1743–1822), and on their literary interactions with friends and family. Considered together, these subjects and sources allow comparison across denomination, for Talbot was Anglican, Steele Baptist, and Bolton Methodist. After an introductory chapter, Chapter Two focuses on spiritual friendship, showing how women used personal writings within peer relationships to think through religious ideas and encourage faith commitments. Chapter Three considers older women as spiritual elders, arguing that elderly women sometimes achieved honoured status in religious communities and were turned to for spiritual direction. Chapter Four explores the ways in which women offered religious instruction to spiritual children through the creative use of informal writings, including diaries and poetry. And Chapter Five considers women’s personal writings as spiritual legacy, as they were preserved by family and friends and continued to function in religious communities after the death of their authors.

This thesis will argue that the Beowulf Manuscript, which includes the poem Judith, Saxo Grammaticus’s Gesta Danorum, and the Old-Norse-Icelandic Laxdæla saga highlight and examine the tension between the female pagan characters and their Christian authors. These texts also demonstrate that Queenship grew fragile after the spread of Christianity, and women’s power waned in the shift between pre-Christian and Christian Europe.

Abstract Many historians would like to discover a time of relative freedom, security and independence for women of the past. The Germanic era, from 400-1000 AD, was a time of stability, and security due to limitations the law placed upon the mundwald and the legal ability of women to possess property. The system of compensations that the Germans initiated in an effort to stop the blood feuds between Germanic families, served as a deterrent to men that might physically or sexually abuse women. The majority of the sources used in this work were the Germanic Codes generally dated from 498-1024 AD. Ancient Roman and Germanic sources provide background information about the individual tribes. Secondary sources provide a contrast to the ideas of this thesis, and information.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Macquarie University, School of Behavioural Sciences, 1994.
Bibliography: leaves 357-378.
Introduction -- MANDEGUSU -- Totoso kame rane - time long ago -- Totoso rodomo - time of darkness -- EDDYSTONE ISLAND -- Tataviti bule - pacification -- Totoso taqalo - time of light/cleanliness -- SIMBO -- Tinoa - lives -- Koburu - child -- Tinana - mother -- Vinarialava - marriage -- Rereko iviva - significant woman -- Qoele, tomate - aged woman, ancestor.
This thesis considers the ethnographic history of Simbo, a small island in the western Solomon Islands. The particular focus is upon the significance of conversion to Christianity and subsequent Christian practice, in shaping social and cultural issues and practices in the 1990s. Women's lives, in particular those aspects concerned with kinship, are the lens through which historical changes are viewed. By juxtaposing the structures suggested by indigenous lifecycle categories and the differentiation inherent in individual biographical material, I try to reflect the regularities and continuities within Simbo society as well as the variability and unpredictability of sociality at any given moment. At the same time, the mutability of structure is reflected in the transformed significance of institutions and ostensibly similar practices. -- The period under scrutiny is that between c. 1900-1990, which covers social practices and events from immediately prior to pacification and the Methodist Mission's establishment in the New Georgia Group in 1902 up until the present. I argue that since pacification, the progressive development of indigenous Christianity has been the major determinant of Simbo responses to the world system. This is not to argue that pacification represented the first intrusion of Europe or the beginning of social transformations. Constructions of indigenous societies as having been static entities before contact with Europe are critiqued. Pacification, after more than a century of contact with Europe, had revolutionary implications because of its significance from local worldviews, as much as for its demonstration of British political "legitimacy". -- Christianity, then, cannot be divorced from the reality of political and economic subordination throughout the twentieth century. Nor, however, can it be simpHstically treated as merely the ideological face of expanding capitalism. Following J. Comaroff and J.L. Comaroff, I treat the non-material aspects of social life as being as significant as the material. From its earliest days, the Methodist Mission both facilitated and hampered the interests of government and traders. But it is not only mission personnel who are important here. Simbo people have consistently shaped and deployed their own Christian frameworks. If they never resisted it, they have certainly transformed what was imposed on them ninety years ago from ideology to lived hegemony.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
xxiii, 378 leaves ill. (some col.), maps

This thesis seeks to offer new perspectives on the role of women in African-American Christian denominations in the United States in the period between the Civil War and the turn of the twentieth century. It situates the changes in the roles available to black women in their churches in the context of ecclesiastical politics. By offering explanations of the growth of black denominations in the South after the Civil War and the political alignments in the leadership of the churches, it seeks to offer more powerful explanations of differences in the treatment of women in distict denominations. It explores the distinct worship practices of African-American Christianity and reflects on their relationship to denominational structure and character, and gender issues. Education was central to the participation of women in African-American Christianity in the late nineteenth century, so the thesis discusses the growth of black colleges under the auspices of the black churches. Finally it also explores the complex relationship between domestic ideology, the politics of respectability, and female participation in the black churches.

The COVID - 19 pandemic that swept the world in 2020 and the reactions of state authorities to it are unparalleled events in modern history. In order to protect public health, states have limited a number of fundamental human rights that individuals have in accordance with national constitutions and international conventions. The focus of this paper is the right of access to abortion in the Member States of the European Union. In Europe, the situation with regard to the recognition of women's right to abortion is quite clear. All member states of the European Union, with the exception of Poland and Malta, recognize the rather liberal right of a woman to have an abortion in a certain period of time after conception. However, Malta and Poland, as members of the European Union, since abortion is seen as a service, must not hinder the travel of women abroad to have an abortion, nor restrict information on the provision of abortion services in other countries. In 2020, a pandemic highlighted all the weaknesses of this regime by preventing women from traveling to more liberal countries to perform abortions, thus calling into question their right to choose and protect their sexual and reproductive rights. This is not only the case in Poland and Malta, but also in countries that recognize the right to abortion but make it conditional on certain non-medical conditions, such as compulsory counselling; and the mandatory time period between applying for and performing an abortion; in situations present in certain countries where the problem of a woman exercising the right to abortion is a large number of doctors who do not provide this service based on their right to conscience. The paper is divided into three parts. The aim of the first part of the paper is to consider all the legal difficulties that women face in accessing abortion during the COVID -19 pandemic, restrictions that affect the protection of their dignity, right to life, privacy and right to equality. In the second part of the paper particular attention will be paid to the illiberal tendencies present in this period in some countries of Central and Eastern Europe, especially Poland. In the third part of the paper, emphasis will be put on the situation in Malta where there is a complete ban on abortion even in the case when the life of a pregnant woman is in danger.

Tears are flowing. Whether Yvonne Catterfeld, Kazim as-Sahir, Unati Msenga-na, Liu Huan, Simon Cowell or Lira – they are all part of a jury of global music casting show formats such as The Voice, Idol or Got Talent and show their tears in front of the camera, seemingly ashamed and yet completely uninhibited. Their tears flow in reaction to ‘particularly soulful’ music titles or to the candidates’ tragic personal stories, paired with the ‘right’ song selection. The display of great emotions is an essential element of reality TV formats. With Sara Ahmed, they can be understood in the sense of an ‘affective economy’ as an effect of their circulation, their staging as a specific ‘emotional style’ of dealing with emotions (Eva Illouz). The circulation of affects in casting shows is a global one, since the formats, developed in Europe, have produced local versions in over 60 countries worldwide. Emotions play an important role in the successful localization of the formats and define a complex area of conflict between a sensitization to socio-cultural characteristics and the ‘reproduction of culturalistic concepts’ (Laura Sūna) or clichés. In European cultural history, tears have developed a special significance as guarantors of the authenticity of empathy (Sigrid Weigel), and are generally associated with femininity, however at the same time have been film-historically recoded as ‘gender-neutral’ (Renate Möhrmann). Keeping in mind that all these casting show formats have been exported from Europe, these observations are of special interest, especially since one can see men and women crying equally in the Arabic, German or South African versions of e. g. The Voice. This article questions the concurrence of musical performance, display of tears, gender performance and the translocal dramaturgy of music casting shows.