Elizabeth A. Castelli | Barnard College (original) (raw)

Elizabeth A. Castelli

Elizabeth A. Castelli is Professor of Religion and Director of the Center for Research on Women (BCRW) at Barnard College. She is a specialist in biblical studies, early Christianity, feminist/gender studies in religion, and theory and method in the study of religion. Research interests include bodily pieties, the "afterlives" of biblical and early Christian texts, translation theory, and histories of transmission and reception. Her English translation of Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini's San Paolo, the never-produced script for a film about St. Paul, appeared in 2014 from Verso Books UK. She is the founding editor of the scholarly journal Postscripts: The Journal of Sacred Texts and Contemporary Worlds. She is currently at work on a collection of essays on the theme of confession.

She serves on the advisory board member of the Center for Religion and Media at New York University and the board of the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. She is also a longtime collective member of Word Up Community Bookshop/Libreria Comunitaria in Washington Heights in Upper Manhattan.
Phone: 212.854.8291
Address: Religion Department
Barnard College
3009 Broadway
New York, NY 10027

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In Narratives of Time and Gender in Antiquity, ed. Esther Eidinow and Lisa Maurizio (London/NY: Routledge, 2020), 150-65, 2020

Biblical Interpretation, 2019

Closing reflection, part of special issue of Biblical Interpretation: Pasolini's Paul: Represen... more Closing reflection, part of special issue of Biblical Interpretation:
Pasolini's Paul: Representation, Re-Use, Religion, ed. Joseph A. Marchal and Robert Seesengood

The legacy of Pasolini's work persists beyond the recent English translation of his screenplay for Saint Paul. This concluding essay then provides a brief reflective extension into three additional genres: painting, poetry, and public art. These artistic adaptations reflect the open-ended impacts of Pasolini's work, its provocations and excesses in particular evoke a notion of saintliness.

Elizabeth A. Castelli, "Sex and Sexual Renunciation II: Developments in Research Since 2000," in ... more Elizabeth A. Castelli, "Sex and Sexual Renunciation II: Developments in Research Since 2000," in The Early Christian World, 2nd ed., ed. Philip F. Esler (London/New York: Routledge, 2017), 372-384.

In Melania: Early Christianity through the Life of One Family, ed. Catherine M. Chin and Caroline... more In Melania: Early Christianity through the Life of One Family, ed. Catherine M. Chin and Caroline T. Schroeder (Los Angeles and Berkeley: University of California Press, 2017), 271-82.

in Politics of Religious Freedom, ed. Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, Saba Ma... more in Politics of Religious Freedom, ed. Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, Saba Mahmood, and Peter G. Danchin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015)

In Narratives of Time and Gender in Antiquity, ed. Esther Eidinow and Lisa Maurizio (London/NY: Routledge, 2020), 150-65, 2020

Biblical Interpretation, 2019

Spiritus, Jan 1, 2006

few years ago, I finished a book on the cultural memory of early Christian martyrdom. In the epil... more few years ago, I finished a book on the cultural memory of early Christian martyrdom. In the epilogue to this book, I explored in broad strokes the deep ambivalences that circulate around the figure of "the martyr," a figure who simultaneously inspires awe and reverence, anxiety and suspicion. As I have spoken about the book in various contexts-academic lectures and conferences, readings at churches and bookstores-I have been fascinated by the ethical turn of many of the responses I have received, for there has hardly been an occasion when I have spoken about the book that the topic of contemporary suicide bombers has not come up, usually framed by the question, "Are these people really martyrs?" The barely veiled wish here is that I, an "expert" on martyrdom, will declare suicide bombers not really martyrs and that my declaration will somehow magically rebuild the clear boundaries between true and false martyrs and thereby restore some sanctity to the category of "martyr" itself. My now-routine response-that the designation "martyr" is not an ontological category but a post-event interpretive one, that martyrs are produced by the stories told about them-seems to fall short of satisfying the wish for a sacrosanct ideal, devoid of ambivalence. But what interests me most about the longing for such an ideal and the desire for clear-eyed distinctions between true and false martyrs is that these wishes reflect a deep recognition of the religious, cultural, and political power of the figure of "the martyr" itself. If martyrs are objects of reverence, models for emulation, ideals against which to measure one's own commitments, they are also embodiments of compulsion and absolutism. Their incarnation of utter, unwavering conviction inspires desire for certainty: the certainty that they enact, but also certainty about their character and status.

Journal of Human Rights, Jan 1, 2005

Contribution to a forum about Elizabeth Shakman Hurd's Beyond Religious Freedom: The New Global P... more Contribution to a forum about Elizabeth Shakman Hurd's Beyond Religious Freedom: The New Global Politics of Religion (Princeton University Press, 2016) - published in the Immanent Frame, an online publication of the Social Science Research Council
http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2016/05/05/paradoxes-of-international-religious-freedom/

Sociology of Religion, 2020

Review of Melissa M. Wilcox, Queer Nuns: Religion, Activism, and Serious Parody (NYU Press, 2018)

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