Beverly Mayne Kienzle – författare

This ground-breaking volume assesses the contemporary epidemic of intimate partner violence and explores how and why cultural and religious beliefs serve to excuse battering and to work against survivors’ attempts to find safety. Theological interpretations of sacred texts have been used for centuries to justify or minimize violence against women. The authors recover historical and especially medieval narratives whose protagonists endure violence that is framed by religious texts or arguments. The medieval theological themes that redeem battering in saints’ lives—suffering, obedience, ownership and power—continue today in most religious traditions. This insightful book emphasizes Christian history and theology, but the authors signal contributions from interfaith studies to efforts against partner violence.

Examining medieval attitudes and themes sharpens the readers’ understanding of contemporary violence against women. Analyzing both historical and contemporary narratives from a religious perspective grounds the unique approach of Nienhuis and Kienzle, one that forges a new path in grappling with partner violence. Medieval and contemporary narratives alike demonstrate that women in abusive relationships feel the burden of religious beliefs that enjoin wives to endure suffering and to maintain stable marriages. Religious leaders have reminded women of wives’ responsibility for obedience to husbands, even in the face of abuse. In some narratives, however, women create safe places for themselves. Moreover, some exemplary communities call upon religious belief to support their opposition to violence. Such models of historical resistance reveal precedents for response through intervention or protection.

This ground-breaking volume assesses the contemporary epidemic of intimate partner violence and explores how and why cultural and religious beliefs serve to excuse battering and to work against survivors’ attempts to find safety. Theological interpretations of sacred texts have been used for centuries to justify or minimize violence against women. The authors recover historical and especially medieval narratives whose protagonists endure violence that is framed by religious texts or arguments. The medieval theological themes that redeem battering in saints’ lives—suffering, obedience, ownership and power—continue today in most religious traditions. This insightful book emphasizes Christian history and theology, but the authors signal contributions from interfaith studies to efforts against partner violence.

Examining medieval attitudes and themes sharpens the readers’ understanding of contemporary violence against women. Analyzing both historical and contemporary narratives from a religious perspective grounds the unique approach of Nienhuis and Kienzle, one that forges a new path in grappling with partner violence. Medieval and contemporary narratives alike demonstrate that women in abusive relationships feel the burden of religious beliefs that enjoin wives to endure suffering and to maintain stable marriages. Religious leaders have reminded women of wives’ responsibility for obedience to husbands, even in the face of abuse. In some narratives, however, women create safe places for themselves. Moreover, some exemplary communities call upon religious belief to support their opposition to violence. Such models of historical resistance reveal precedents for response through intervention or protection.

An engaging and enchanting journey into a world of letters that will inspire and edify all those who love writing.

Jerome Groopman, MD,

Recanati Professor, Harvard Medical School, coauthor with Dr. Pamela Hartzband, "Your Medical Mind: How to Decide What is Right for You."

Beverly Mayne Kienzle grew up surrounded by papers and manuscripts containing the remarkable writings of her grandmother Virginia Cary Hudson Cleveland, still unpublished at her death in 1954. Beverly''s mother, Virginia Cleveland Mayne, devoted herself to publishing those works.

That manuscript, O Ye Jigs and Juleps!, sold for $2.50 and made its firstof sixty-sixappearances on the New York Times Best Sellers list on May 27, 1962, and three other books followed. Kienzle now returns to her roots and tells the story her mother started but never finished, the biography of Virginia Cary Hudson, a "girl who grew up preaching."

In this authoritative biography, Virginia Cary Hudson, Kienzle recounts the career and family life of Virginia Cary Hudson. With warmth and humor, she reveals her grandmother''s incisive observations of humankind, from simple folk to big-time gamblers, in places from Kentucky to Havana and Las Vegas. The letters and the scrapbook Beverly''s grandmother completed for her, with its charming poems and drawings, appear in print for the first time, as does the narrative that Beverly''s mother began in order to tell the poignant story of publishing a best seller.