Rebellious Women: Hildegard, Joan of Arc, Dorothy Day and Sigrid Undset

History is full of women misbehaving. In time periods when speaking out could get you burned at the stake, some women had the audacity to speak their minds anyway. Laura Michele Diener, a Women Studies and Medieval scholar, was initially surprised to find the boldest women were in the convents. Today we’ll talk about the intersection of mysticism with female empowerment, medieval history, and modern day literature. We’ll also talk about two more recent women whose writings and activism got them into plenty of trouble: Sigrid Undset, the author of the classic trilogy Kristin Lavransdatter, and Dorothy Day, the social activist and founder of the Catholic Worker movement.

We’ll explore the restlessness that all these women shared - for it was this, their unnamable longing, that led to their divine search for connection with all creatures.

Laura Michele Diener is a professor of medieval and ancient history at Marshall University, where she directed the Women’s Studies program from 2014-2021. She loves telling stories throughout time, including Norse mythology, medieval spirituality, and the history of fashion.

Currently she is writing a biography of the Nobel-prize-winning writer, Sigrid Undset. She also is an upcoming guest speaker in our Women Mystics School.

To learn more about the Women Mystics School, visit www.womenmystics.org.

00;00;26;18 - 00;00;35;18

Kelly Deutsch

Welcome to Spiritual Wanderlust, where we explore our interior life in search of the sacred. Many of us will travel the whole world to find ourselves.

00;00;36;04 - 00;00;37;28

Laura Michele Diener 

But here will follow those longings.

00;00;37;28 - 00;01;28;26

Kelly Deutsch

Within to our spiritual and emotional landscapes. In each episode, we'll talk with inspiring guests, contemplative teachers, embodiment experts, neuropsychologists and mystics with a blend of ancient wisdom and moderån science. Along with a healthy dash of mischief. Well, deep dove into divine intimacy and what it means to behold. I'm your host, Kelly Deutsch, Welcome to Spiritual Wanderlust, where we explore our interior life in search of the sacred Many of us will travel the whole world to find ourselves.

00;01;29;13 - 00;01;31;07

Laura Michele Diener 

But here, we'll follow those longings.

00;01;31;07 - 00;01;55;03

Kelly Deutsch

Within to our spiritual and emotional landscapes. In each episode, we'll talk with inspiring guests, contemplative teachers, embodiment experts, neuropsychologists and mystics with a blend of ancient wisdom and modern science, along with a healthy dash of mischief, will deep dove into divine intimacy and what it means to behold. I'm your host.

00;01;55;10 - 00;01;56;07

Laura Michele Diener 

Kelly Deutsch.

00;02;07;17 - 00;02;35;27

Kelly Deutsch

Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Spiritual Wanderlust Podcast. I'm Kelly Deutsch, and I have joining me today, Laura Michelle Diner. And I'm excited for a conversation today because some of my favorite dialogs are at the intersections of things. You know, I like neuroscience and spirituality, literature and philosophy, ideas and culture. And Laura, Michelle, has dedicated her life to studying several intersections.

00;02;36;11 - 00;03;01;07

Kelly Deutsch

Medieval history, the role of women, spirituality, literature, fashion, all sorts of amazing things. She's a professor of medieval and ancient history at Marshall University, where she directed women's studies from 2014 to 21. And Laura Michelle writes Not only academically but also in the creative sphere. She's an upcoming speaker on our Women Mystic School. And Laura Michel, I'm very excited to have you today and welcome.

00;03;01;24 - 00;03;05;07

Laura Michele Diener 

Thank you so much I'm excited to be here. Yeah.

00;03;05;21 - 00;03;25;01

Kelly Deutsch

I wanted to start our conversation today with a little bit of your background. And I was curious a little to hear a little bit about your own spiritual journey, because I know you mentioned to me that you you grew up Jewish, but you also had this fascination with Christian mysticism. And I'm curious how those streams kind of have blended together for you over life.

00;03;26;03 - 00;03;50;10

Laura Michele Diener 

Sure. Well, yes, I did. I did grow up Jewish. I still consider myself Jewish. And I practice, you know, no. Of the major holidays. But I've always been drawn, I suppose, to what is different from me. But I somehow find connection to you. So I've always loved the Middle Ages and wanted to study the Middle Ages, but I never wanted to study.

00;03;50;23 - 00;04;14;17

Laura Michele Diener 

I don't know, Jewish women in the Middle Ages. I wanted to I was always drawn to what seemed very different. But I was still able to connect to and I made that connection particularly with women mystics when I was in graduate school. I discovered Hildegard on being in and Kathryn at Siena and I just became entranced by them.

00;04;15;00 - 00;04;55;20

Laura Michele Diener 

And I was entranced by both, you know, sort of their alien nature, which was fascinating, but also that I still connected with them and found them so human. So it was really through those female mystics in particular, that I became very interested in Catholicism and Catholic spirituality, and I became very interested in nuns in particular. That started off as a medieval interest, and my dissertation focused on medieval nuns in England in France mainly, and literature that they wrote and absorbed.

00;04;55;29 - 00;05;10;15

Laura Michele Diener 

But over the years, it became a much larger interest, and I became interested in nuns pretty much every time in place, including today, which really just enlarged my interest in Catholic spirituality.

00;05;10;24 - 00;05;33;20

Kelly Deutsch

Hmm. Yeah, interesting. I think for a lot of people, I mean, having spent time at a convent myself, a lot of people find nuns to be this kind of almost like weird other worldly life. Like, you can't be normal. Like, when I was in Italy, people would always be shocked when I told them, you know, I was in a religious community and they're like, But you're young and you look like a normal person, like.

00;05;34;01 - 00;05;59;04

Kelly Deutsch

And I'm curious what of their lives, especially of medieval women, like, what felt relevant to you? Because it seems like especially some of the tales that we get of some of the medieval mystics, they just seem, you know, either they're like levitate thing or they have these visions or, you know, something that seems so otherworldly. And I'm curious, what makes them human?

00;05;59;24 - 00;06;21;17

Laura Michele Diener 

Oh, sure. Well, I will start off by saying that it never occurred to me that nuns version of stranger different or otherworldly or scary or anything like that. And I think it's because of the, I know, very inaccurate childhood movies that I grew up with where they're frequently delightful, like The Sound of Music or The Trouble with Angels.

00;06;22;12 - 00;06;59;02

Laura Michele Diener 

And so they always seem to me, you know, as sort of, I don't know, most fun spirited years But what really drew me to them when I was older and studying them academically were the sources really that they provided. When you study medieval women, you're generally dealing with a lack of sources, a lack of text that they wrote, a lack of texts that refer to them, even some of the most famous, you know, great medieval queens like Eleanor of Aquitaine.

00;06;59;02 - 00;07;26;02

Laura Michele Diener 

It's really hard to actually find them in a lot of these historical chronicles that their contemporaries wrote. You know, you just get a fleeting glimpse of them, even though, you know, they were there but with nuns, medieval nuns, it's completely different. You get personal letter collections, you get texts that they wrote for each other. You get letters that they wrote to popes and kings.

00;07;26;02 - 00;07;55;13

Laura Michele Diener 

Hildegard Von being in is a great example, and she just wrote so much texts that were meant to be read by a wider public and then letters to two friends letters Chast izing, great, you know, great lords and then members of the church. And so they I guess they sort of sold themselves because I was, you know, I was looking for something to read, and they were really the medieval women that offered it.

00;07;55;20 - 00;07;56;08

Laura Michele Diener 

Hmm.

00;07;56;23 - 00;08;22;17

Kelly Deutsch

Yeah. That's interesting that women who at least nowadays we consider so set apart were in some ways kind of the center of a lot of culture and activity back in the Middle Ages. That's Hmm. I'm, I'm wondering, too, what if you could tell us a little bit just of the context of what life was like for women in the Middle Ages?

00;08;22;17 - 00;08;46;13

Kelly Deutsch

Because as I read some of these writings of the mystics, whether it's Hildegard or Julian or Northwich or Catherine of Siena, any of these it could be dangerous for them. You know, like Julian, the first woman to write in English that we know of, you know, and at the time, people who wrote in English were sometimes considered heretics because, you know, some of the other things going on and, you know, there were people being burned at the stake.

00;08;46;13 - 00;09;05;10

Kelly Deutsch

And Teresa of Avila was like had the Inquisition hot on her tail and, you know, all. So it was kind of dangerous to speak your mind. And I'm I'm wondering what that context was like for these women who had the audacity to be fully who they were and say what they thought and speak to the men in power as boldly as they did.

00;09;05;25 - 00;09;06;23

Kelly Deutsch

What was that like for them?

00;09;07;18 - 00;09;51;02

Laura Michele Diener 

Well, definitely they had to seek approval or you couldn't just write what you wanted. And, you know, everyone everyone would be happy and you could go about your business as some of the women who we know. So much about today. They somehow found approval or orthodoxy. For example, Hildegard Bunting in her first book of Visions that was sanctioned by some High-Ranking church authorities, which gave her the authority to then continue to write And had she not been sanctioned, possibly she would have done it anyway because she showed herself to be resistant to authority when it suited her.

00;09;51;02 - 00;10;17;10

Laura Michele Diener 

But that certainly got her a wider audience, which got her, you know, people who are willing to sort of donate money to her monastery, which got her is a wealthier import nuns, which then to helped her later in political causes. So I think the women that we hear about were frequently lucky that they managed to find somebody sympathetic to them who did, in fact, have authority.

00;10;17;10 - 00;10;41;15

Laura Michele Diener 

So, you know, even if they weren't always on the right side, later on, they still had that initial support. So I think that was important. At the same time, though, I guess life was just dangerous for everybody all the time. I don't mean because, you know, you're always being watched for for heresy, but, you know, frequently you're dealing with, you know, the deaths of people that you love.

00;10;41;16 - 00;11;13;25

Laura Michele Diener 

Catherine of Siena was always dealing with, you know, waves of the plague, nursing her family. She was dealing with warfare. Just traveling could be could be very dangerous at the time. So they were dealing with her physical threats and, you know, I guess more sort of spiritual threats as well. But one thing that you see with many of these writers is that it's far more dangerous and oppressive for them to stay silent.

00;11;14;09 - 00;11;53;01

Laura Michele Diener 

Hildegard, in her first book of Visions, talks about how she wants to stay silent. She doesn't want to write what comes to her, and that makes her ill. It makes her sad. And she feels like she's betraying God by doing that. So probably these women would have continued to write and speak regardless of the cost. And certainly with some of the big scenes in the German French mystics, they did pay the price for it.

00;11;53;09 - 00;12;18;17

Laura Michele Diener 

But you don't get any sense that they were willing to recant. I was actually just teaching in a class the other day about Joan of Arc, and she's not, I guess, the first person we think of when we think of medieval mystics, because she wasn't a great, prolific writer. But she certainly fits that category and she does recant at one point and then recants her recantation.

00;12;18;24 - 00;12;43;18

Laura Michele Diener 

And she says that she said what she said for fear of the fire. She was afraid of being burned. And so she, you know, agrees her visions were not from God. That everything she said was false. And then she realizes she can't do it. And so she has to speak her mind and admit to the truth. As she believes it, even though she means it's gone, she knows it's going to mean a horrible death.

00;12;44;02 - 00;12;45;01

Laura Michele Diener 

Mm hmm.

00;12;45;21 - 00;13;05;16

Kelly Deutsch

Yeah. I was just thinking, as you were mentioning, Hildegard, and I was thinking, too, of Teresa of Avila and some of the other women that I've been reading, how shrewd sometimes they are it kind of like they know how to pull the strings in the system because, I mean, that's that's what they knew and had to live in all of the time.

00;13;05;16 - 00;13;23;17

Kelly Deutsch

And so they knew that they had to get kind of the spiritual slash political kind of backing of someone. And how, you know, Hildegard, I can't even remember. Was it Bernard of Clavo that she got kind of to, like, give her a good word to the pope? And then the pope was like, she is the symbol of the Rhine.

00;13;23;17 - 00;13;53;14

Kelly Deutsch

And everybody's like, oh, okay. Like, I guess she's all right then, you know, but to like, know who to like. Okay, people listen to Bernard. Like, the pope will listen to him. So let's go, you know, like, plant some seeds over there or even I can't even remember what the technical term is for it. Like Teresa of Avila, I don't know, something like the feminine rhetoric or something, how frequently she would be like, oh, I'm just a woman, a poor, stupid woman, you know, to, like, say I'm not learned.

00;13;53;15 - 00;14;07;03

Kelly Deutsch

Like, don't blame it on me. If this you think this is heretical or like, in error. I just thought that was really interesting how how women I'm assuming they did that mostly consciously. You know, they had to know what they were doing.

00;14;07;13 - 00;14;42;22

Laura Michele Diener 

I think so because it's not exclusive to religious women, women of the church, mystic women. You see that in a very secular women as well, particularly royal women, when they are writing to the pope at the time or, you know, a very important bishop, someone, you know, who had a great deal of authority and they're writing with demands or criticisms they will say what they have to say, but they will couched it in that same language.

00;14;43;08 - 00;15;07;15

Laura Michele Diener 

Forgive me if I speak out of turn. I'm just a humble woman. And usually if they're writing that way, they're doing it on behalf of a husband or a son. So, for example, of Eleanor of Aquitaine, she yells at the pope in her several letters because he's not doing enough to help her son, Richard, the king of England, who has been held captive.

00;15;07;15 - 00;15;31;04

Laura Michele Diener 

That sort of the famous story, you know, and all the movies and everything, where he was off fighting the third crusade and then he's being held hostage you know, he's captured on his way home and she really chastises the pope. But then she says, you know, forgive me, I am just a mother. And you, of all people, you know, the love of a mother for a son and how powerful that is.

00;15;31;15 - 00;15;39;22

Laura Michele Diener 

Of course, you know, the Virgin Mary, his love for her son. So she's, I think, very aware of what she's doing. And you see that kind of language all the time. Hmm.

00;15;39;25 - 00;16;06;11

Kelly Deutsch

Yeah. Yeah. That's so interesting how sometimes we do have to work within the system. Just so we're able to move forward and make any progress, you know, and be heard Do you feel like is history fairly linear in the role of women and the progressive like rights and latitude food and just space for us to be fully who we are?

00;16;06;12 - 00;16;09;15

Kelly Deutsch

Or are there times in history where it kind of goes backwards?

00;16;11;01 - 00;16;44;02

Laura Michele Diener 

That's very good. Question. There's been a number of historians who have written on that, and you know, argued, I think rightly, that history for women is more circular and up and down. They will cite revolutions, for example, at the beginning of revolutions. Frequently women have a lot of say, and then as order is restored, they're frequently shut out.

00;16;44;02 - 00;17;33;15

Laura Michele Diener 

So the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution, and you can see that as well in the Middle Ages, in times of weak central authority of governments, in times of chaos and war, frequently women have more authority. And then when you get the rise of established central governments or a time of really strong of a really strong church hierarchy, sometimes women will get shut out once a year of comparison would be in very, very early medieval France before it was even really France, when it was still the kingdom of Frankie under the mayor of Vengeance.

00;17;33;15 - 00;18;04;12

Laura Michele Diener 

And then it becomes part of the Carolinian empire when you have sort of a split kingdom under the mayor of vengeance, we see really just a flowering of female scholarship in in the church. You see a really strong female led monasteries where there's, you know, a number of scribes, there's schools, there's a great deal of writing coming out of them.

00;18;06;00 - 00;18;37;24

Laura Michele Diener 

And then later under the Carolinians engines and Charlemagne, where we get this sort of really a stronger centralized government and more of a strong alliance between the church hierarchy and the government, you see the decline of that system and maybe a strengthening of male monasteries, but a sort of a gradual sort of shutting out of that sort of female intellectual culture.

00;18;38;02 - 00;18;45;27

Laura Michele Diener 

And so really, you find that I think, you know, we're 2000 different ways throughout history. That's definitely not linear.

00;18;46;08 - 00;19;12;27

Kelly Deutsch

Yeah. Yeah. I find that the complexity and the nuance adds a lot to just our understanding of not only history, but especially of religion, because I think there's this stereotype that like, oh, Christianity in the West has always just suppressed women. And to see that, like, not across the board, like there have been, you know, abuses in charge of like double monasteries where they're in charge of women.

00;19;12;27 - 00;19;33;17

Kelly Deutsch

And, you know, that there's more to the story than just like, oh, you've sinned and fell and therefore women are falling like, yeah, that was like some messed up theology. But thankfully, there's some other exceptions where, you know, the church I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the church one of the few places where women could have some authority I mean, outside of maybe royalty?

00;19;34;05 - 00;20;03;24

Laura Michele Diener 

Yes, absolutely. Now, keeping in mind that most people, at least in the early Middle Ages who were involved in the church, were fairly high class. They were noble, if not Royall. But yes, that would be the place that I think you find women not just writing but organizing and having having authority. I have. So I had a dissertation advisor who was a very independent woman.

00;20;03;24 - 00;20;26;15

Laura Michele Diener 

She was really quite she's quite brilliant. Barbara Hanawalt. She's written a million books. And people always asked her if she you know, who she would be if she lived in the Middle Ages. Did she want to live in the Middle Ages? And surprisingly, I think most people who study the Middle Ages don't actually want to share her the reality as opposed to this sort of romantic revision.

00;20;26;22 - 00;20;37;29

Laura Michele Diener 

And she said, no, she didn't want to live there unless she could be the advice of a very rich and very corrupt monastery, which I always thought would be great.

00;20;37;29 - 00;21;16;03

Kelly Deutsch

And interesting. Yeah. Because from your studies, especially having studied nuns in particular, what is your impression or what does, you know, as far as the text can hint at of how many women joined religious life simply to escape? You know, either oppression or having to bear like a dozen kids or, you know, escaping poverty or, you know, because I feel like the convents were also a place for I mean, sometimes it's because like, okay, well, we already paid what we could for dowry for the first few.

00;21;16;03 - 00;21;40;23

Kelly Deutsch

So like now we're going to push her somewhere else. But how much was it a refuge for women and how many vocations do you think were actually just that versus like, I'm actually called by God, you know, like because I feel like today if people join a monastery or a convent, it's very much a personal calling and I'm curious how much that has differed over time.

00;21;42;09 - 00;22;12;01

Laura Michele Diener 

Well, I would say it it varies always in time and place and that, you know, the true calling and the practical side of it don't always have to be mutually exclusive. Now, for much of the Middle Ages, depending on you know, the order and the place and all of that, people would join as children. So they wouldn't necessarily have a choice in whether or not they joined.

00;22;12;01 - 00;22;40;17

Laura Michele Diener 

And Hildegard is raised in a monastery from a young age. That's pretty typical. And I'm sure some people really rebelled against that and didn't have an actual calling, although that doesn't mean they didn't find joy and contentment in their lives. But certainly Hildegard had a true calling, even though, you know, she was sent there for very practical purposes by her parents.

00;22;40;17 - 00;23;09;15

Laura Michele Diener 

They had basically promised that they were going to give this particular child, you know, as sort of like their their spiritual ties to the church. So they did. And I think that later in the Middle Ages, and particularly in different kinds of quarters, mostly women who have a genuine drive, you know, Catherine of Siena would be a great example.

00;23;09;15 - 00;23;34;03

Laura Michele Diener 

I mean, she really didn't have an order to join her one that was easily accessible to her. She sort of had to forge her own religious life. That was how strong her calling was. And then you have other women like Claire who are destined for marriage. You know, their parents are completely against their having any kind of religion you know, religious life.

00;23;34;03 - 00;24;01;05

Laura Michele Diener 

And their calling is so strong, they fully what would probably been have been a very comfortable aristocratic marriage to her follower. They're their true calling. So I think it I think it varies, definitely There were, though, women who joined at all different stages of life. So certainly if you were a widow and older when you joined it probably had a practical side to it.

00;24;01;05 - 00;24;13;27

Laura Michele Diener 

Like that was, you know, that was sort of a place to go. It was a place to retire. But it could also be a place you always looked forward to retiring, not just this was this is the best option available to you.

00;24;14;07 - 00;24;38;25

Kelly Deutsch

Yeah. That makes me think of the beginnings. Who had many mystics among them. And I feel like a pretty I mean, not a lot of people know who the big names are or exactly what they did. And I find them so fascinating and I'm curious if if they really are. So the begins, you know, are these women who kind of banded together to form this nun?

00;24;39;06 - 00;25;03;01

Kelly Deutsch

They weren't nuns, but they weren't I mean, there were lay women. But I'm curious if they really were that extraordinary as they appear to be for their times and how they kind of got away with living together without this like male patronage and things that a bunch of single or widowed women were able to live on their own in the Middle Ages and become as powerful as they did.

00;25;03;25 - 00;25;31;02

Laura Michele Diener 

Oh, well, I'm not really an expert on the beginning so I might be I might be misspeaking, but many of them did have sort of at least nominal spiritual authority of you know, a male confessor who works for like a nearby monastery or church. So they weren't sort of, you know, completely on their own. They were still sort of within the system.

00;25;32;12 - 00;26;01;05

Laura Michele Diener 

And some of them were, you know, were those sort of mistakes that, you know, attract a lot of attention? You know, they're there, you know, moments of divine union would be very, very extravagant, you know, levitation or, you know, I don't know, stigmata or visions. And so there would always be or not always, but there could be someone who would sponsor them, who would champion them.

00;26;01;05 - 00;26;34;13

Laura Michele Diener 

So some of the big scenes of of kind of the Netherlands attracted a lot of attention and received a lot of positive attention. But you do you see that begin houses begins and you know, in other sort of houses of religious women kind of outside of the mainstream, orders were always accepted and particularly sort of in the later Middle Ages, you know, they could be sort of criticized or disbanded.

00;26;34;27 - 00;26;37;14

Laura Michele Diener 

So I would say they weren't always fully accepted.

00;26;37;18 - 00;26;38;17

Laura Michele Diener 

Mm hmm.

00;26;38;26 - 00;26;47;04

Kelly Deutsch

Yeah. Yeah. I find that remarkable. Just yeah. The audacity of so many of these women to do what they felt called to do.

00;26;48;19 - 00;27;04;04

Laura Michele Diener 

And a number of them could also be self-supporting, which I think was important when they were leaving when they were producing wool. You know, I think that made a huge difference as well to how they were able to survive. Yeah.

00;27;04;05 - 00;27;26;18

Kelly Deutsch

Yeah. I find that. So just interesting how they basically form their own little I mean, almost like a commune or something, you know, like a self-supporting, you know, they're doing their own kind of trades crafts. Yeah. That's so interesting. What would you say is your favorite either figure or event or time period to teach about?

00;27;27;26 - 00;27;59;18

Laura Michele Diener 

Oh, goodness. There are there are so many. I do love the planned pageants and England and France to some extent. I love the period sort of in the 12th and 13th century with Henry the Second and Eleanor of Aquitaine and their their children, Richard and John and Geoffrey and Matilda and Joan, they were all so colorful, had such vibrant personalities.

00;27;59;18 - 00;28;28;07

Laura Michele Diener 

And, you know, there's great chronicles about them and some of their letters have survived. So I just find that to be a really fun time. And it's a time that's very much enshrined in, I guess, our cultural mythology. You know, we have we have movies that either take place during that period or feature some of the main figures and Ivan, I've been Walter Scott wrote novels.

00;28;28;07 - 00;28;53;25

Laura Michele Diener 

As for the Robin Hood legends take place, I just think that's a really fun time to look at I also well, there's a number of things that I really enjoy. I quite enjoyed teaching about medieval Scandinavia and the Vikings as well. There's a lot of that student interest. So it's really, you know, it's always fun as a teacher when students are excited.

00;28;54;01 - 00;29;16;17

Laura Michele Diener 

Yes. And I very much like teaching about the later Roman Empire and that some of the transitioning in the West between the Roman Empire and then later Germanic kingdoms. So I guess I have a lot of a lot of teaching interest, but really I would say many of them have been shaped by student response.

00;29;16;24 - 00;29;28;06

Kelly Deutsch

Yeah, I was going to say for for students, what do you find like what what really lights them up or brings like such a big aha that they're like, oh my gosh, this somehow impacts the way that I view the world?

00;29;29;14 - 00;30;00;13

Laura Michele Diener 

Well, what you were saying before about how many of us have a preconception of sort of straight forward linear history and these very very sort of set ideas about what happened when. So you mentioned we think that the church was really, really bad for women until maybe very recently and it got better, but it was just this completely oppressive thing.

00;30;01;22 - 00;30;44;01

Laura Michele Diener 

And, you know, I I think students get really interested in how that's not always true and how they read about sort of fascinating people who actually found, you know, they found their voice and their creativity through Christianity in whatever form. Perpetua would be a great example of that. And she's a Roman woman from Carthage, and she's actually one of really like very few women who we have we have writings from from the Roman Empire there.

00;30;44;11 - 00;31;28;19

Laura Michele Diener 

So it's that would be so rare. And she was a woman who became a Christian so this is this is North Africa. This is the second century, I think. But I don't have my notes in front of me. So I could be I could be off. And she somehow becomes a Christian, even though her father isn't and she's actually imprisoned and she refuses to to say that she's other than she is, even though her family, who are quite, you know, aristocratic, they come and they beg her and she's trying to persuade her father, you know, why she can't be other than she is.

00;31;28;29 - 00;32;02;03

Laura Michele Diener 

And she basically looks at this container of water and says that container water, she can't be anything but a container of water. So I can't be anything other than I am. And she ends up staying in prison. She's actually just given birth and her child is taken from her. And then she ends up dying in a gladiator ring with several other people, including a young slave woman who has also just given birth and so it's somewhat of a gruesome story.

00;32;02;03 - 00;32;31;17

Laura Michele Diener 

But I think when you read it, what you see is that this religious these religious ideas have given people a new voice and a new authority that they didn't have. And I think for a number of, you know, students today, they wouldn't see the Christian church that way. They wouldn't see it as empowering younger people to rebel and to, you know, find authority because that's not that's not their experience.

00;32;31;17 - 00;32;53;00

Laura Michele Diener 

You know, this was, you know, centuries upon centuries ago. But it's fascinating. I think, you know, when they when they see that, they see the infinite varieties of spirituality and the infinite varieties of identity that have occurred in the past. So those are the moments that I think are exciting for students and then exciting for me as a teacher.

00;32;53;05 - 00;33;27;02

Kelly Deutsch

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Empowering people to rebel and find authority Yeah. That's that's a beautiful thing that I love finding among, you know, in the series on women mystics, as I've been reading more and more of their writings and their stories and such, just how bold so many of them have been and felt completely. I mean, even though, you know, I'm sure they second guess themselves and there were difficult times, but it seems so many times that they were just fearless in speaking their mind because they knew that's what they needed to do.

00;33;27;02 - 00;33;59;09

Kelly Deutsch

And what what either the gospel was calling them to or, you know, their sense of what God and this kind of divine union was calling them to. And that's a really beautiful thing. Another thing that strikes me as you're sharing is how much just how compelling stories are. And I'm curious because I know you also write and I'm I'm curious if that if the overlap between your interest in history and your interest in writing is in story or how those kind of intersect.

00;34;01;01 - 00;34;26;22

Laura Michele Diener 

Well, certainly my interest in history is is through story. And again, I think I share this with most of my students. Many of them, I think, come to my classes because they love mythology and Norse mythology and Greek and Roman mythology. And, you know, who does? And I it's it's fascinating. And, you know, that's I think what drew me to history as well.

00;34;26;22 - 00;34;54;18

Laura Michele Diener 

Where we're stories. And, you know, as we talk about in class, you know, a myth really is just a story. And so, you know, we're all, I think, drawn to the past because of the amazing stories that we hear. And for me, I think that really became a vocation. The only way I know how to teach history is really by by sharing stories, you know, and sometimes are stories of great martyrs.

00;34;54;18 - 00;35;18;07

Laura Michele Diener 

Sometimes they're stories of gods and goddesses and queens. And then sometimes, you know, are stories of, you know, of peasants or of rebellions or wars, or sometimes they're of great individuals who left left behind, you know, a record of themselves in their writing. But certainly that's that's how I see the past is through stories.

00;35;18;16 - 00;35;40;17

Kelly Deutsch

Yeah. Yeah, I find that. So I don't know. It's just compelling how life stories just stick with you in ways that other things don't. And I know there's something about the way that our brains are wired for that. And I'm sure just, you know, even just ancient history and how oral traditions and, you know, so much was bound up with stories.

00;35;40;17 - 00;35;49;15

Kelly Deutsch

So I find, you know, historians at least the most interesting ones to me are the ones who are essentially professional storytellers.

00;35;50;14 - 00;36;14;03

Laura Michele Diener 

Yes. And I think most of us are particularly the ones that, you know, that that write for, you know, our audiences and that aren't just academic. And also pretty much every historian who teaches, I think, has to be a storyteller. I mean, certainly that was that was my experience as a student. And, you know, that's my experience with, you know, with my colleagues.

00;36;14;03 - 00;36;44;14

Laura Michele Diener 

I mean, that's how that's how we relate to others, which is probably why, you know, I love the Middle Ages. I love the ancient world, really. I love most periods I find I find interesting. But I don't necessarily think of myself as a historian. And I'm employed by history department. So professionally, I am. But, you know, I'd like approaching a time period through as many ways as you can.

00;36;44;26 - 00;37;01;19

Laura Michele Diener 

You know, I don't feel sort of bound by any particular discipline. So, you know, through through art and literature and artifacts. I mean, anything that can kind of contribute to a good story, I think is worth studying and talking about.

00;37;01;24 - 00;37;32;25

Kelly Deutsch

Yeah, I love that. I my undergrad was in humanities, and so we, you know, studied in time periods. And that was the first time that I got such a holistic view of any you know, something happening in history to study, not just, you know, the history and events and you know that, but the philosophy in the literature and the politics and the theology and how all of those just wove together and gave you such a full picture of of what it was like in those time periods, what people were thinking, how the ideas impacted the culture.

00;37;32;27 - 00;37;34;26

Kelly Deutsch

I just find all of that so fascinating.

00;37;35;18 - 00;38;06;25

Laura Michele Diener 

Absolutely. I also I was not a history major as an undergrad. I was a medieval and Renaissance studies major. And in fact, many of the people I work with who are sort of officially employed as historians, we were something else in our student days. Philosophers art historians. And, you know, we approach, I guess. Yeah, the time period of the spirit of the age you know, how however, however we can we can find it and find ways to relate to it.

00;38;07;10 - 00;38;28;11

Kelly Deutsch

Yeah. So one story that I know you're currently working on is of Sigrid Unset, the author of the famous trilogy about Kristen Laverne's daughter. And I discovered I knew that this was, you know, a popular book, that it won a Nobel Prize in literature. But I did not know it was one of the world's most read novels like that.

00;38;28;11 - 00;38;47;02

Kelly Deutsch

It's an 80 different languages. And I still I have friends who have read it and loved it. It's been on one, you know, kind of the like, someday I need to read this book, but I've never read it myself. And I'm curious what what is so remarkable about this trilogy? Like, why is it so compelling? And what's remarkable about the author, Sigrid?

00;38;48;06 - 00;39;15;06

Laura Michele Diener 

Oh, goodness. Where to start? Thanks so much. Well, I think if we start with the trilogy itself, there's a lot there. If it's a book, I think that ages with the reader. So it, it's a trilogy that is about a woman in 14th century Norway it begins when she's a young child and then it ends with her death.

00;39;15;18 - 00;39;43;11

Laura Michele Diener 

The first book is about mainly her, her growing up and then her sort of wild courtship with this incredibly unsuitable man. And then they're married at the end. And then the second book is about their marriage and the many children that they have, among other things. And then she dies of the plague at the very end. So there's something in it that appeals, I think, to all ages.

00;39;43;11 - 00;40;16;00

Laura Michele Diener 

When I first encountered these books and read them, I was I think, a sophomore in college, and I was just absolutely entranced by the romance. I mean, there's just a fantastic romance in there. A few years later, I read them and I was really intrigued by the father daughter relationship because I think that things that were going on in my home life, I probably read them, I don't know, ten years later.

00;40;16;06 - 00;40;35;20

Laura Michele Diener 

And it was really the descriptions of mother hood that got me. I expect I'll read them in a few years and it'll be about the aging process or something else, but they really grow up with the reader and so you can read them over and over and over again, and they're still very rich and there's always something new that you get out of them.

00;40;35;29 - 00;40;51;27

Laura Michele Diener 

I think that is why they continue to appeal and why people love them so much, because you can read a book and love it and it's great and then you never need to read it again. But these are books that just stand continual readings.

00;40;52;02 - 00;41;24;14

Kelly Deutsch

Yeah, I was going to say it almost makes me think of like, you know, the Dostoyevsky of Scandinavia or something. You know, where it's just so densely written. And I guess that's what good classic literature does. It just speaks to the human heart on such a deep level that it's withstands the test of time. This is why we continue to read Shakespeare or why we read the Greek tragedies or, you know, British literature or, you know, different things like that, because they have such fundamental human truths but portrayed in a story that that can continue to be unpacked.

00;41;25;10 - 00;42;02;08

Laura Michele Diener 

Absolutely. And it's nice that you mention Dostoyevsky, because a number of readers have always compared Christian long and shorter leverage, shorter to Dostoyevsky and a number of people who love her books, including myself, also loved Dostoyevsky, but also, you know, more famous people like Dorothy Day they will always talk about the two of them together. It also does have an appeal significantly, I think, for Catholic readers or sort of spiritually seeking readers, when Sigrid on set was writing those novels.

00;42;02;19 - 00;42;40;10

Laura Michele Diener 

She was, I think, grappling with her burgeoning Catholic faith, and she hadn't converted yet, but she would convert shortly after writing the novels. So they're very much stories of not necessarily coming to faith because the characters are, you know, are staunchly Catholic, you know, throughout the book. But there's a certain rich, sweet joy in space that I think pervades those novels that people can find very appealing.

00;42;40;20 - 00;42;41;22

Laura Michele Diener 

Mm hmm.

00;42;42;08 - 00;43;08;03

Kelly Deutsch

Yeah. I'd be curious to to learn more about that. Kind of the parallel between this and Dostoyevsky, because, I mean, Dostoyevsky's works are also deeply spiritual. And, you know, I mean, I've been in plenty of theology classes, you know, where we're reading passages from Dostoyevsky and such, even though, you know, he's he intended to write literature, but he also was deeply informed by kind of this Russian mystical strain.

00;43;08;03 - 00;43;17;20

Kelly Deutsch

And I'm I'm curious if Sigrid had, like, where she got her own spirituality from, like, what were her sources?

00;43;18;28 - 00;43;49;17

Laura Michele Diener 

Well, I suppose, you know, we could ask that question of, you know, anyone, you know, where does it come from? Frequently, there's there's no real answer. There's some kind of restlessness or desire inside people that doesn't make a lot of sense. Certainly with Sigrid, she was not born into a particularly spiritual or religious family. Her parents were fairly secular.

00;43;49;27 - 00;44;24;26

Laura Michele Diener 

Her paternal grandparents were there. They were deeply religious. But it was a sort of, I would say, like a hard kind of Protestantism that was very different from the sort of religion that she later found. And her father kind of rebelled against that. So she was raised in a very secular household. They celebrated Christmas. They were sort of, you know, nominally Protestant, as pretty much most people in Scandinavia were at the time.

00;44;25;27 - 00;44;54;20

Laura Michele Diener 

And she there I think she was always seeking something. And, you know, and you see that in a lot of writings. They don't know people don't know what they're seeking, but eventually they know it when they find it, even if at first they they try and run away from it. Where she first, I think, found at least some you know, some of what she was looking for was deep in Norway's past.

00;44;55;09 - 00;45;22;24

Laura Michele Diener 

She was very enthralled with the Middle Ages mean not just because she wrote these novels, but her father had been an archeologist. She grew up surrounded by artifacts. She was sort of growing up in this kind of a Norway that was becoming politically independent for the first time in centuries. And so it was a country that was very much aware of its past and very sort of celebratory of its past or all these breakthroughs in archeology.

00;45;23;15 - 00;45;55;07

Laura Michele Diener 

So people were sort of more aware of their medieval past. You know, her father worked in a museum where there was a reconstructed Viking ship that had just been discovered So she was very interested in the Middle Ages. And I think as she explored more of that, she became more intrigued by the religious traditions of the Middle Ages, which she saw as being an antidote to cold modernism.

00;45;55;23 - 00;46;44;17

Laura Michele Diener 

So she's growing up, you know, in you know, she's a teenager and she basically grows up almost with the century, you know, in the in the 19 teens. And, you know, she see she's, you know, a young mother in world war one and she sort of sees the destruction of modernism, industrialism and in the Middle Ages, you know true true or not what she finds there is this sort of beautiful romantic past where people sort of felt deeper and thought deeper and were more connected with each other and with the land and through that, she came to embrace that spiritual side of the past as well, which was a very unpopular move really for her at

00;46;44;17 - 00;46;58;10

Laura Michele Diener 

the time. She was not in a country that was surrounded by Catholics or that had a strong Catholic tradition, and most people didn't really understand what she was doing and found it very alien.

00;46;58;18 - 00;47;45;08

Kelly Deutsch

Yeah. Yeah. But that those those desires in that restlessness feels very contemporary, you know, and I think that's why there is such a growing interest in you know, the contemplative tradition in mysticism. But also it's like it's not just this like ethereal like thing floating in the sky of, but it's something very like gritty and earthy and embodied and, you know, hearing cigarette's own interest in connecting with each other and with the land and like living life on a deeper level like that feels I mean, just like our audience, I think like a lot of us have those same desires, like, what does that look like to live in a way that's more connected to myself

00;47;45;17 - 00;47;50;08

Kelly Deutsch

to the divine, to each other, to the earth. Yeah, it feels very relevant.

00;47;50;22 - 00;48;22;20

Laura Michele Diener 

Absolutely. She had an article that she wrote that is really interesting. It's called The Old Paganism, and she refers to the old by the old Paganism. She means the pre-Christian religion of Norway, and she sees that as almost seamlessly evolving into medieval Catholicism as she's seen, sees the same sort of connection to the land, connection to the spiritual happening.

00;48;22;24 - 00;48;45;01

Laura Michele Diener 

She sees, you know, sort of a feast days and holidays kind of evolving into each other. She doesn't see that as a break with tradition. And I think in many ways she's she's quite correct in seeing, you know, early, you know, kind of medieval Catholicism in Scandinavia as very much a merging out of a confluence of all sorts of different ideas.

00;48;45;25 - 00;49;03;15

Laura Michele Diener 

But she contrast that with what she calls the new paganism or the new heathen ism, which is modernity, where you worship nothing and you believe in nothing except yourself. And the money you can produce and the things that society says are good.

00;49;04;10 - 00;49;04;25

Laura Michele Diener 

Hmm.

00;49;05;24 - 00;49;20;01

Laura Michele Diener 

And that's, I think, what she is. She's trying to get away from that and get back to, you know, to this older spirit that she sees as, you know, as representing Connect Yeah.

00;49;20;02 - 00;50;06;25

Kelly Deutsch

Yeah. Just feel so much more human, you know, and that's I'm very thankful that that's the form of of Christianity and Catholicism that I grew up with, and particularly in my undergrad, understanding that it's a very incarnates and kind of gritty way of living, that it's not, you know, it's not this modernity. It's the it's the living of life with the rhythm of the seasons, you know, and that these are the rhythm of life that follows whatever, whether it's like threshing or planting or carving or whatever it is, you know, that that we are living as one with the life that's around us and that's so enriching.

00;50;07;19 - 00;50;50;24

Laura Michele Diener 

She has some really beautiful passages in various essays. I know her novels are very famous, but she also wrote a lot of essays. She would probably be considered a creative nonfiction writer today. The term didn't really exist back then, but she wrote a lot of personal essays and she talks about being young and traveling with friends, and as she puts it, believing in nothing or not knowing in what to believe, but going to these sort of old sacred sites like, you know, wells and lakes that had legends attached to them that, you know, we're just all over the place, you know, in the in the countryside and still, like living like rocks are saying a prayer

00;50;50;24 - 00;50;58;24

Laura Michele Diener 

because she's like, I don't know in what to believe or what to believe, but I knew I had to say thank you before I land.

00;50;59;08 - 00;50;59;22

Laura Michele Diener 

Hmm.

00;51;00;04 - 00;51;19;12

Kelly Deutsch

Yeah. And that's that, I don't know, natural spiritual inclination that we have. It's like you know, there's something sacred about a place, and you might not know what to call it, but you you almost feel and I don't know, inclined impelled to to actually bow or or to say thank you.

00;51;19;22 - 00;51;21;06

Laura Michele Diener 

Oh, absolutely.

00;51;21;18 - 00;51;58;11

Kelly Deutsch

Yeah. I also wanted to ask about secrets contemporary Dorothy Day, because I know that they were also friends. I mean, you share that with me. I didn't know that previously that they had any connection whatsoever. But in this upcoming class, you'll be teaching on in the women mystics. I'm, I'm curious not only about the connection of sacred with Dorothy Day, but I'm also curious about how Dorothy Day fits in this whole tradition of spirituality and kind of that connection with the past I know there's a couple of different parallels between them.

00;51;58;11 - 00;52;00;04

Kelly Deutsch

So I'm curious what your thoughts are on that.

00;52;01;17 - 00;52;32;04

Laura Michele Diener 

Yes. Well, that's a topic that I'm very excited about. So I will say that Dorothy drove me to sacred or sacred Ruby to Dorothy. I'm not really sure how how it works. Certainly, I have been reading Secret Onset since I was in college, and then I became very intrigued by Dorothy Day. I don't know, maybe about ten years ago, and I sort of left them both separately before stumbling upon her some connections to them.

00;52;32;24 - 00;52;58;27

Laura Michele Diener 

I had not realized that they were acquainted I didn't know that they very much admired each other. So in Dorothy Days diaries, which are edited, and she I'm on my side of the I have a stack of them right here, but her diaries are edited and her letters are a number of her letters are edited, and she recommends Christian Lauren's daughter all the time to people particularly.

00;52;59;02 - 00;53;35;01

Laura Michele Diener 

She has a daughter, Tamar Hennessy, and she's always recommending that she reads Christian Lauren's daughter. She says it's a good antidote for her loneliness. She reread it herself all the time, and then they actually became acquainted. So Secret Onset was very outspoken. Against the rise of the Nazis in Germany. She had some articles published that resulted in her books being banned in Germany.

00;53;35;13 - 00;54;01;24

Laura Michele Diener 

They had actually been quite popular there. So then when the German army invades Norway, she's advised to bully as soon as she can that she would be a person of interest. She was really, really quite popular. I think it's hard she's one of those figures who she is popular among certain people today, but she's certainly not an international bestselling author.

00;54;01;24 - 00;54;39;23

Laura Michele Diener 

But at the time, you could compare her to, I don't know, Margaret Atwood or, you know, someone like that. Their books come out and, you know, everybody's preordered copies, that sort of thing. So she is a well-known person who is not liked by this invading party. So she flees. She ends up in Brooklyn. And once she's there, she's, you know, sort of immediately introduced to all these different know, Catholic families most of them are involved in some way with Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker.

00;54;40;06 - 00;55;07;24

Laura Michele Diener 

So they meet a number of sort of mutual friends before they come together and meet each other and you know, instead of recounting how this happens, you see that Cigaret. And that is a huge admirer of Dorothy Day as well. And they had a great deal in common so you can see why they didn't just admire each other's writings, but each other's each other's lives, each other, each other as people.

00;55;08;02 - 00;55;44;15

Laura Michele Diener 

Dorothy Day was also not born into a Catholic family or even a religious family at all. She, like Sigrid on set, converted as an adult, both of them. Well, really, for both women, their conversion coincided with the break up of romantic relationships. For Dorothy Day, it was more immediately connected. The man that she was in love with, Forster Batterham, who is the father of her child, just despised religion.

00;55;44;15 - 00;56;05;14

Laura Michele Diener 

He didn't want, you know, he didn't want to be in a relationship with her if she was Catholic. And also once she converted, she felt she couldn't live with him without being married and he didn't want to want to get married. So her conversion sort of was the beginning of the end of that relationship, which was deeply painful for her.

00;56;05;27 - 00;56;32;24

Laura Michele Diener 

Something very similar happened with Sigurd Onset and she left her husband shortly before writing the Christian Lawrence Daughter books, hoping that they would reconcile. But in the process, she converted to Catholicism and they they drifted apart and basically had their head, their marriage annulled. And so both of them had sort of lost a lot of a lot of love in their lives.

00;56;32;24 - 00;57;02;25

Laura Michele Diener 

And it was connected with some of their their greater spiritual seeking but I think both also realized that in pursuing love, that brought them greater to their that brought them further to their calling as well. So they had a great deal in common. Dorothy Day even speaks in her diaries about reading Kristen Lawrence, daughter when her relationship is breaking up, but when she is first sort of learning about the beauty of the sacraments.

00;57;03;01 - 00;57;25;14

Laura Michele Diener 

So I think their lives and their stories were very much bound together, even though they both didn't meet until, you know, they were they were much older and they were only ever able to meet a few times because they were so incredibly busy. It was, you know, it was a World War two and Sigrid on set gets to Brooklyn before the US has entered the war.

00;57;25;15 - 00;57;50;21

Laura Michele Diener 

But I mean, you know, the war is on everybody's mind all the time and they're both always speaking, always writing, always going on these public tours. They just do not have a lot of time to meet. But when they did meet, it's very clear that they impacted each other very much, you know, and they write these sort of descriptions of each other and whether letters to other people about how beautiful and memorable the other woman was.

00;57;51;04 - 00;58;18;21

Laura Michele Diener 

And they speak about the importance of their respective writings. So, you know, it's a it's a very interesting story. You can follow it mainly in letters that they wrote in different archives to each other and then to other people about them. You can see it just in little glimpses here and there, you know, in in published diaries and things like that.

00;58;18;27 - 00;58;24;25

Laura Michele Diener 

But I think it's you know, it's fascinating that they did intersect and influence each other that way.

00;58;24;29 - 00;58;47;17

Kelly Deutsch

Yeah. Yeah. I'm really looking forward to your your class on Dorothy Day because she's such a complex woman. Like, I love that she loved, like, cultured things and literature. I mean, she was, you know, not only her love for, like, Christian lover and star, but, you know, she frequently quoted Dostoevsky and she loved the opera and classical music and art and all these things.

00;58;47;25 - 00;59;17;15

Kelly Deutsch

Yet at the same time, she she lived among the poor and wore donated clothes and was constantly battling like bedbugs and you know, all these things that and was this like profoundly active, you know, political and social activist? She was a pacifist. All of those things. But you have all of those elements and that her early life is like a bohemian and, you know, a journalist and all of those aspects along with, you know, having multiple lovers in her life.

00;59;17;15 - 00;59;52;12

Kelly Deutsch

And I mean, just I feel like it's not the typical story of of a saint or a mystic that you get, you know, that she had such a mixed life, you know, hung out with anarchists, had an abortion when she was younger, was a single mom. And I I'm curious what kind of teasers you would like to leave with our audience about maybe, you know, two or three things that you find remarkable about Dorothy Day and especially her spirituality, because I think we talk a lot about what she did kind of externally and her activism.

00;59;52;26 - 00;59;58;07

Kelly Deutsch

But not as much as said or at least as well known about her, her own spirituality.

00;59;59;24 - 01;00;27;10

Laura Michele Diener 

All right. Well, I would say that when we do think about saints or, you know, in her case, people who are sort of possibly going to be saints, then we don't think about them as very entrenched within a family. I don't know that that's accurate. I mean, Catherine of Siena was very much entrenched in her family. But Dorothy Day was a mother and a grandmother actively the whole time.

01;00;27;10 - 01;00;45;20

Laura Michele Diener 

She was doing her works of mercy and, you know, working with the Catholic worker and also, you know, sort of devoting herself to her spiritual life and becoming a mother. And then later a grandmother was intrinsic to her spirituality. It was.