Mechthild of Magdeburg and Her Book: Gender and the Making of Textual Authority

Church History, Dec, 2005 by Patricia Zimmerman Beckman

Poor's argument culminates in a manifesto to abandon simplistic challenges to canon for more nuanced, complex unveilings of the strategies used in particular times and locations for "imagining" tradition. She exposes "alterity" to remind us that our categories are never fixed. Above all, Poor demonstrates how careful historical and textual work can contribute to a broader understanding of overarching interpretive issues on key figures in the history of Christianity. She submits this detailed account of Mechthild's text as the perfect example to challenge both historical canons and contemporary scholarship's unwitting replication of them. Poor thus provides not only a history of interpretation of one particular medieval religious figure and her text. Rather, she advocates a self-reflective, historical process for future scholarly interpretation.

Patricia Zimmerman Beckman

University of Missouri-Columbia