The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity by Thomas J. Heffernan

He concludes the book with a complete codicological description of all of the known manuscripts and thorough scholarly indices of the text itself. It also includes a newly edited version of the Latin text based on all the extant manuscripts and - rarer still - the Greek text. Thomas Heffernan's new study contains much that has never been done before, including a prosopography of all the individuals mentioned in the Passion, a new English translation and the first detailed historical commentary in English on the entire narrative of the Passion. This unique and precious text survives in one Greek and in nine Latin manuscript versions. A description of the heroic deaths of both women, and the autobiography of one of the leaders of the Christian community, Saturus, is woven into Perpetua's diary by an anonymous editor, who tells us that, as they died, Perpetua, Felicity, and the other condemned Christians bid farewell with a kiss of peace. Perpetua's steadfastness in her belief led to her martyrdom in the amphitheater. Imprisoned with her was her pregnant slave Felicity. She was well-married and had recently become the mother of a baby son, but despite her advantages, she refused to recant her faith when she was arrested with other recent converts to Christianity. in Carthage, as part of a civic celebration honoring Caesar Geta. One of the most widely read and studied texts composed in Late Antiquity is the prison diary of Vibia Perpetua, a young woman of the elite classes who was martyred in March of the year 202 or 203 C.E. By focusing on the women behind the suit, Ramirez offers a revisionist interpretation of the involvement of women in the infamous Los Angeles Zoot Suit riots and the Sleepy Lagoon case of 1943.Winner of the Modern Language Association Prize for a Scholarly Edition

Siegel is a professor at Yale Law School and Greenhouse covers the Supreme Court for the New York Times.Ĭatherine Ramirez, The Woman in the Zoot Suit: Gender, Nationalism, and the Cultural Politics of Memory, (2009).Ĭatherine Ramirez illuminates the ways in which Mexican-American women rebelled and chose to express their individuality by joining the popular zoot suit movement of the 1940s. This is not an all-roads-led-to-Roe story it is much more interesting, unpredictable, and historical than that. Wade, making it clear that the now landmark decision was one case among many, the justices’ reasoning was rather narrowly cast. It reconstructs the everyday politics of contraception and abortion before Roe v. Here’s another readable and important book.

Wade: Voices that Shaped the Abortion Debate Before the Supreme Court’s Ruling, (2010). Linda Greenhouse & Reva Seigel, Before Roe v.

The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity by Thomas J. Heffernan