Simon Du Toit

The Man in Full Armour: Preaching’s Hail of Bodily Order in Early Modern England

Panel Abstract: This panel will explore the performance of Christian preaching in public spaces. Public preaching claims authority to appropriate and re-order public space by means of a subversive mode of performance from the perspective both of social authorities and the (unwilling) audience. It hails those who hear it as ’sinners’ and ’saved’, and constructs conflicting publics by its performative hailing, often against the wishes of those who are being placed into these constructions. Public preaching often has a specifically defined goal in a way that few other performative forms do. However, sometimes public preaching seems to perform the speaker’s status more effectively than it actually evangelizes. This panel will explore public preaching in various times and places. By looking at preaching in different contexts (early modern England, 19th and 20th century America, contemporary multicultural San Francisco), we aim to throw into relief the theoretical aspects those contexts share, and areas in which they differ. We will examine the tensions inherent in the street preacher’s act as a seizing of denotative power, as the expression (and creation) of identity, the assertion of a church community larger than the formal congregation, and as a form of spiritual gift. We will make use of the theoretical work of Warner, Bourdieu, Butler, Burke, and Austin in moving towards a fresh view of preaching and performance.