A Cultural Study of Mary and the Annunciation From Luke to the Enlightenment Studies for the International Society for Cultural History Series

This book traces the history of the Annunciation, exploring the deep and lasting impact of the event on the Western imagination. Waller explores the Annunciation from its appearance in Luke?s Gospel, to its rise to prominence in religious doctrine and popular culture, and its gradual decline in importance during the Enlightenment.

1 History and Historia: Reading the Annunciation Story from the Sixteenth and Twenty-First Centuries 2 The Annunciation: Multiple Texts, Multiple Stories 3 Constructing the Invented Traditions of the Annunciation Story: Angel, Virgin, Conception 4 Constructing the Invented Traditions of the Annunciation Story: Motherhood, Obedience, Humility 5 Visualizing the Annunciation: The Anxiety of Representation 6 Annunciation Site Relics: The Invented Traditions of Nazareth, Loreto and Walsingham 7 'Being in Her is Like Being in Heaven': The Annunciation in Early Modern Catholicism 8 'Full of Grace' or 'Highly Favoured'? Erasmus, the Annunciation and the Protestant Cultural Revolution 9 'Verkundigung nach Tizian' (The Annunciation after Titian) and the Disenchantment of the Early Modern World

Gary Waller is Professor of Literature and Cultural Studies at Purchase College, SUNY. He taught as Donaldson Bye Fellow at Magdalene College, Cambridge and at the Universities of Auckland, Dalhousie, Wilfrid Laurier, Carnegie Mellon and Hartford. Recent books include The Virgin Mary in late Medieval and Early Modern Literature and Popular Culture (2011) and Walsingham and the English Imagination (2011).