In-Person LectureSatanic Feminism: Lucifer as the Liberator of Woman in Nineteenth-Century Culture （サタニック・フェミニズム：19世紀文化における女性解放者としてのルシファー）
SPEAKER:
Per Faxneld (Assoc. Professor, Södertörn University, Sweden/ Visiting Assoc. Professor, Tohoku University, Japan)
DATE:
November 22, 2023 (Wed.)
15:30-17:00
VENUE:
University of Tokyo, Hongo Campus
Law & Letters bldg. 1, 1F, r.113
東大本郷キャンパス法文1号館1階113教室
(For the campus map, please click here)
ABSTRACT:
According to the Bible, Eve was the first to heed Satan’s advice to eat the forbidden fruit and thus responsible for all of humanity’s subsequent miseries. The notion of woman as the Devil’s accomplice is prominent throughout Christian history and has been used to legitimize the subordination of wives and daughters. In the nineteenth century, rebellious females performed counter-readings of this misogynist tradition. Lucifer was reconceptualized as a feminist liberator of womankind, and Eve became a heroine. In these reimaginings, Satan is an ally in the struggle against a tyrannical patriarchy supported by God the Father and his male priests. Per Faxneld’s talk will show how this ”Satanic feminism” was expressed in a wide variety of nineteenth-century literary texts, autobiographies, pamphlets, newspaper articles, paintings, sculptures, and even artifacts of consumer culture like jewelry. Spanning European and US culture, the presentation details how colorful figures like the suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton, gender-bending Theosophist H. P. Blavatsky, author Aino Kallas, actress Sarah Bernhardt, anti-clerical witch enthusiast Matilda Joslyn Gage, decadent marchioness Luisa Casati, and the Luciferian lesbian poetess Renée Vivien embraced these reimaginings. By exploring the connections between esotericism, literature, art and the political realm, new light will be shed on neglected aspects of the intellectual history of feminism, Satanism, and revisionary mythmaking. The talk is based on Faxneld’s award-winning book Satanic Feminism (Oxford University Press, 2017).
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Per Faxneld is associate professor in Study of Religions at Södertörn University, Sweden, and Visiting Associate Professor at the Graduate School of International Cultural Studies, Tohoku University. He is currently conducting a three-year project funded by the Swedish Research Council on spiritual dimensions of Japanese martial arts as practiced in Sweden. Faxneld is the author of the award-winning monograph Satanic Feminism: Lucifer as the Liberator of Woman in Nineteenth-Century Culture (Oxford University Press, 2017) and several other books and numerous articles. Specializing in esotericism and alternative spirituality, he is especially interested in issues pertaining to secularity, gender, aesthetics, and cultural transfers. Other research interests include folk religion and the intersection of religion and cinema.
This event will be in English, and in person only (no registration required)
Dept. of Global Japanese Studies, Tohoku University
Co-hosted with the Dept. of Religious Studies, University of Tokyo
and EANASE (East Asian Network for the Academic Study of Esotericism)
