Perpetua's Passions Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis

Perpetua's Passions is a collection of studies about Perpetua, a young female Christian martyr who was executed in 203 AD. Like her spiritual guide, Saturus, Perpetua left a diary, and a few years after their deaths a fellow Christian collected these writings and supplied them with an introduction and epilogue: the so-called Passion of Perpetua. The result is one of the most fascinating and enigmatic works of antiquity, which the present volume examines from a wide range of perspectives: literary, narratological, historical, religious, psychological, and philosophical viewpoints follow upon a newly edited text and English translation (by Joseph Farrell and Craig Williams). This innovative treatment by a number of distinguished scholars not only complements its unique subject, but constitutes a kind of laboratory of new approaches to ancient texts.

1 - Felicitas: The Martyrdom of a Young African Woman
2 - Perpetua's Gender. A Latinist Reads the `Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis'
3 - `Femina liberaliter instituta': Some Thoughts on a Martyr's Liberal Education
4 - `Vibia Perpetua': An Indecent Woman
5 - The `Passio Perpetuae' and Jewish Martyrdom: The Motif of Motherly Love
6 - Perpetual Contest
7 - Maternity and Sainthood in the Medieval Perpetua Legend
8 - The Editor's Prime Objective: `haec in aedificationem Ecclesiae legere'
9 - Exemplum and Sacrifice, Blood Testimony and Written Testimony: Lucretia and Perpetua as Transitional Figures in the Cultural History of Martyrdom
10 - Visions, Prophecy and Authority in the `Passio Perpetuae'
11 - The Conquest of the Real by the Imaginary: on the `Passio Perpetuae'
12 - Socrates' Passion
13 - `Nova exempla': The New Testament of the `Passio Perpetuae'
14 - The `Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis' and Montanism?
15 - Perpetua's Martyrdom and the Metamorphosis of Narrative
16 - The Canonization of Perpetua
17 - The Power of Uncertainty: Interpreting the `Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas'
18 - Perpetua's Prisons: Notes on the Margins of Literature