Workshops: Faiths

Workshop 28: Words of Conviction:
Trial Narratives & Testimony of Anne Askew & Joan of Arc

Conveners:

• Robin Farabaugh, English, University of Maryland
• Gail Orgelfinger, English and French, University of Maryland
  

This workshop examined the function of narrative in the interrogations of Anne Askew (1521-1546) and Joan of Arc (1412-1431). Both were martyred for heresy; both became targets of dislocated political wrath after their fearless and sophisticated trial rhetoric threatened their interrogators' attempts to subdue and align their testimony with male-drawn boundaries of knowledge and discourse. Ultimately, both were abandoned to execution by those who could have rescued them. While the interrogators' goals clearly shape the trial narratives, each woman's responses force narrative discontinuity on the questioners' attempts to construct an official storyline. These discontinuities reveal not only the women's separate understanding of the events for which they were on trial, but also of the uses of language as a persuasive tool.

Through examining selected trial excerpts and visual images of these women during interrogation, we raised such questions as "What is role of story in revealing the lives of transgressive women?" "Was narrative employed not simply to record, but in fact to contain the actions of these women?" "What characterizes such narratives?" And as we explore visual representations, "Are the functions of visual art consistent with the functions of the narratives?" And finally, "What are the implications for the power or function of a story when it must be told in more than one medium?