The Present Research Position

RECENT research relating to Julian of Norwich has tended to go in two imain ways. One comments on her showings in terms of medieval theology; the other looks at them in the context of women's writing and the issues of feminist scholarship. She has also attracted the attention of those discussing the issues of apophatic and cataphatic religious discourse, and discussion has emerged recently in relation to the genre of her writing. Of them all, some of the feminist studies would seem to provide the best lead-in to Julian for students studying her work on non-specialist courses, particularly the work of Frances Beer and also Grace Jantzen who, in her recent books, talks about Julian in the idiom of contemporary theological and gender issues and makes her sound a good read. Julian's unresolved tensions between her inner convictions and the teaching of the Church, and her use of the concept of Jesus as mother, both of which align her with a feminist philosophy of religion that wants to stress flourishing and natality as a cultural symbolic, are foregrounded in these studies. But whether Julian is being read by students who possess little understanding of the Christian tradition, following courses on specifically medieval literature, or pursuing non-specialist courses, some attention needs to be drawn to the medieval context out of which she writes; such a context illuminates her unique qualities and both her distance from, and her proximity to, a contemporary situation.

Specific Contexts for Teaching

In the past students working on Julian of Norwich were usually following medieval specialist courses and had some knowledge of medieval world-views. They might study – students at Exeter certainly did – the art and literature of affective devotion in the Middle Ages and look at sermons, the Ancrene Wisse and religious lyrics as a useful lead-in to contemplative texts. The term contemplative, rather than mystical, is used here deliberately. It concentrates more precisely on the area of religious experience with which these texts are concerned and the manner in which they work: they point to the possibility of a crossover between intellectually self-conscious formulations of faith and a perception of how these are ultimately insufficient in face of an ultimate reality designated God.