Making a King - by Winnifred Fallers Sullivan (Hardcover)

About the Book

Focusing on her life rather than her death, Winnifred Fallers Sullivan offers an interpretation of Joan of Arc as a political thinker and actor.

Book Synopsis

There is an enduring fascination with Joan of Arc, yet she is almost always seen alone, as a victim or martyr. A strikingly different person is heard in her letters and the testimony of her companions. To the king of England, she wrote, "I am a commander of war, and in whatever place I come upon your men in France, I will make them leave . . . And if they do not wish to obey, I will have them all killed." She wrote to the people of the towns she defended, giving them news and seeking their support. Her companions spoke of her intelligence, bravery, and military competence. Hers was a collective mission to rescue the people from the depredations of war.

Focusing on her life rather than her death, Winnifred Fallers Sullivan offers an interpretation of Joan of Arc as a political thinker and actor who sought, during her meteoric presence in fifteenth-century France, to legitimate a king, channel God's word, convene a coronation, and speak for the people in an alternative legal order. She assembled sacred kingship, mystical experience, and the press of political and economic chaos into a vernacular political theology that still speaks to our moment. Making a King illuminates Joan's extraordinary life and vision--her conception of sovereignty from below, her form of female masculinity, and her power as kingmaker--and shows why she can help us find a deeper understanding of religion and politics today.

Review Quotes

Making a King attends to how Joan of Arc pulls at and reties the conceptual knot of religion and politics, helping us to understand a familiar figure in a truly new light. Here we have a leading scholar not only advancing her earlier, pathbreaking research but experimenting with creative new directions, grappling with the complexity of primary source material and a range of cutting-edge theories. This book is political theology at its very best.--Vincent W. Lloyd, coauthor of What Is Political Theology?

About the Author

Winnifred Fallers Sullivan is Provost Professor Emeritus at Indiana University Bloomington, where she was the founding director of the Center for Religion and the Human. Her books include The Impossibility of Religious Freedom (2005) and Church State Corporation: Construing Religion in US Law (2020).