Inseparable Companion: The Consolation of Heloise

The twelfth-century love story of Abelard and Heloise, which has been both an inspiration for poets and novelists and a challenge and boon to historians, has often suffered from misinterpretation. Abelard was master of the Paris schools and wrote many works which have survived, but Heloise is represented almost entirely through letter exchanges with him. This work focuses on Heloise, now established as a scholar in her own right and the author of her letters, but importantly, it turns some crucial aspects of the traditional picture of Heloise upside down. She has been painted as a woman of unusually robust sexual appetites, who was never converted from a focus on Abelard to a focus on Christ, who was utterly silenced at Abelard\u27s command, and whose roles as lover and abbess are fundamentally irreconcilable. Although the greater carnality of women was a given for her contemporaries, her efforts to explain how much she valued Abelard\u27s friendship are a challenge to twenty-first century preconceptions as well. As for her lack of conversion, I propose that consolation is a more important question; her loyalty to her vow to Abelard fully explains why she had to wait for him to incite her to God. The crux of my argument is that Heloise was, in fact, consoled by Abelard\u27s second letter. This view calls into question the usual interpretation of her promise to him to put a bridle on her pen. Rather than crushed, she is light-hearted as she engages Abelard in the philosophical dialogue she loved, now turned to the founding of the Paraclete. Once we realize this, it becomes possible, even easy, to integrate Heloise the lover with Heloise the abbess. The picture that emerges shows Heloise to be a woman of her time, albeit an exceptional one. In fact, what both lovers have to say about love closely reflects twelfth-century attitudes. The letters of Heloise rank among the great literary creations of any age and the view they give us of twelfth-century France is unusually personal, but they can be reliably viewed as an authentic woman\u27s voice from the twelfth-century

What does it mean to be a kin majority? Analyzing Romanian identity in Moldova and Russian identity in Crimea from below

Objective This article investigates what kin identification means from a bottom-up perspective in two kin majority cases: Moldova and Crimea. Methods The article is based on ∼50 fieldwork interviews conducted in both Moldova and Crimea with everyday social actors (2012–2013). Results Ethnic homogeneity for kin majorities is more fractured that previously considered. Respondents identified more in terms of assemblages of ethnic, cultural, political, linguistic, and territorial identities than in mutually exclusive census categories. Conclusions To understand fully the relations between kin majorities, their kin-state and home-state and the impact of growing kin engagement policies, like dual citizenship, it is necessary to analyze the complexities of the lived experience of kin identification for members of kin majorities and how this relates to kin-state identification and affiliation. Understanding these complexities helps to have a more nuanced understanding of the role of ethnicity in post-Communist societies, in terms of kin-state and intrastate relations

“Money's too tight (to mention)”:A review and psychological synthesis of living wage research

Traditional living wage research has been the purview of economists, but recently contributions from the field of work psychology have challenged existing perspectives, providing a different lens through which to consider this issue. By means of a narrative interdisciplinary review of 115 peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2000 and 2020, we chart the transitions in the field with attention shifting from macro-economic and econometric lens largely concerned with the costs of living wage policies, to a more person-centric lens focusing on the employee and their family. Synthesizing prior study, we outline five key themes: consequences for individuals, organizations, and societies; changes in operationalization; exploration of different contexts; study of social movements; and the history of the topic. We outline the importance of work psychology in developing the living wage debate through more inclusive definitions, and novel operationalization and measurement, thereby providing fresh insights into how and why living wages can have a positive impact. Critically, we outline the redundancy of simple study of wage rates without understanding the elements that make work decent. We raise key areas for further study, and this topic presents a significant opportunity for psychology to shift focus to impact upstream policy by providing new empirical evidence, and challenges to structural inequalities

Assumption without representation: the unacknowledged abstraction from communities and social goods

We have not clearly acknowledged the abstraction from unpriceable “social goods” (derived from communities) which, different from private and public goods, simply disappear if it is attempted to market them. Separability from markets and economics has not been argued, much less established. Acknowledging communities would reinforce rather than undermine them, and thus facilitate the production of social goods. But it would also help economics by facilitating our understanding of – and response to – financial crises as well as environmental destruction and many social problems, and by reducing the alienation from economics often felt by students and the public

HIST 212-01, Medieval Europe, Fall 2007

This syllabus was submitted to the Office of Academic Affairs by the course instructo