Judith Anderson

When you open the story of Judith you are greeted with a beautiful woman who is mourning the death of her husband. By today’s notion this women will remain heart broken and only do things to remember the lost love one they are mourning for. Instead we are given a totally different side of Judith as she carries out an act that most of the men in her home are too afraid to do. This story is not only one of Anglo-Saxon proportion but one of Biblical tales as well. Though both of them are about the…

Introduction In Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era, Beatriz Preciado uses their body and their body of work as a means of transing theory. Put another way, B.P. uses a genre bending approach to writing theory to attempt to articulate the lived experience of gender ambiguity. B.P. challenges normative conceptions and understandings of bodies, theory, and modes of production in an attempt to explain the queer body. To do so, B.P. employs the radical approach…

The story of Judith slaying Holofernes is widely interpreted in many paintings. The story comes from the Book of Judith. Judith was a wealthy, young, and beautiful widow. She decided to travel to the Assyrian commander in chief, Holofernes, to seduce him into leaving Bethulia. She dressed in her finest clothes and jewelry and entered the Assyrian encampment. She charmed Holofernes over the next few days. Once she gained his trust she got him drunk. Before he could attempt any sexual advances she…

Jael and Sisera and Judith Beheading Holofernes, the women appear in dominant positions over the men. However, the two women are presented very differently in the works. Both illustrate very similar Old Testament stories which involve some moral ambiguity surrounding the actions of the heroines. They offer commentary on the dubious nature of the murders in differing manners through their representations of the women, violence, bloodshed, and their settings. The engraving of Judith presents a…

Michelangelo da Caravaggio’s painting Judith Beheading Holofernes examines goodness and purity in spite of engaging in the act of sinning. Painted in c.1598, using oil on canvas, this painting illustrates a scene from the biblical Book of Judith. It depicts three subjects in what appears to be a bed chamber. The middle subject, Judith is portrayed in the act of beheading the Assyrian commander, Holofernes while her maid looks on (fig. I). In this painting, Judith retains her status of purity and…

Since the advent of civilization, society has tended to experiment with codes that regulate human morality in conformance with established norms and expectations (Halperin, 1990). Of particular interests to societal institutions is sexuality, which for the better part of the centuries leading to the 20th century has been governed by codes drawn from religion and civil laws (Foucault, 1979). Society has continuously normalized heterosexism as the appropriate form of sexuality that should be…

told stories from the Bible. “A Portrait of a Lady of the Saxon Court as Judith With the Head of Holofernes”, tells the story of Judith going into the tent of Holofernes and seducing him while he drinks and eventually decapitates him after he falls asleep. During the Renaissance period the depiction of women was a very sexualized and were meant to be paintings that suggested seduction and lust. However, the painting of Judith is the opposite and…

adds that in Book of Judith God is “using sexuality to vanquish the pagan and save the chosen people.” Stocker posits that Judith, as a sensual woman and eventual murderess, violates many moral standards of Judaism (Stocker 3-4). This suggests that Judith should, by all rights, be rejected by her own community; indeed, many texts, including the Torah and most Protestant Bibles, exclude the Book of Judith from their canons. I believe that the Bethulians’ acceptance of Judith in spite of her…

themselves or save themselves from this major downfall in our society. This is such an important topic that should be discussed by many, but is not. It seems that there are very few who are genuinely concerned when compared. In an article written by Judith Resnik entitled; Arbitration, Transparency, and Privatization: Diffusing Disputes: The Public in the Private of Arbitration, the Private of Courts, and the Erasure of Rights, she addresses the court’s stance on all of this and makes it clear…

Judith Beheading Holofernes was painted in 1602, this painting of Judith beheading Holofernes by Caravaggio. Judith is a widow who charms the Assyrian general Holofernes first, then executes him at his camp. The painting was relived in 1950 and is now part of the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica collection located in Rome. Recognizing real Caravaggios is a little more complicated because he has a strange place in the history of art. He was notorious and famous in the 17th century and he enthused…