Book Review| February 01 2022 Review: Christ’s Subversive Body: Practices of Religious Rhetoric in Culture and Politics, by Olga V. Solovieva Olga V. Solovieva, Christ’s Subversive Body: Practices of Religious Rhetoric in Culture and Politics. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2018. 328 pp. ISBN: 9780810136007 Mark Clavier Mark Clavier Brecon Cathedral Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (2022) 40 (1): 88–89. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2022.40.1.88 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Mark Clavier; Review: Christ’s Subversive Body: Practices of Religious Rhetoric in Culture and Politics, by Olga V. Solovieva. Rhetorica 1 February 2022; 40 (1): 88–89. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2022.40.1.88 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentRhetorica Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2022 by The International Society for the History of Rhetoric. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Reprints and Permissions web page, http://www.ucpress.edu/journals.php?p=reprints.2022The International Society for the History of Rhetoric Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Reviewed by: Christ’s Subversive Body: Practices of Religious Rhetoric in Culture and Politics by Olga V. Solovieva Mark Clavier Olga V. Solovieva, Christ’s Subversive Body: Practices of Religious Rhetoric in Culture and Politics. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2018. 328 pp. ISBN: 9780810136007 Few images have carried as much rhetorical power as corpus Christi, the Body of Christ. Originating in Jesus’ performative presentation of his own Body at the Last Supper and interpreted through the lens of the crucifixion, it quickly became one of the primary theological metaphors for the church. For example, Paul draws on the imagery of Christ’s Body in 1 Corinthians to demonstrate the mutual dependence and deep communion that should characterize the Corinthian church. Paul’s own use points to an integrative understanding of the image that not only promotes Christian unity but also establishes that unity as integral to Christian identity. In this way, the Body of Christ has been used to persuade would-be schismatics and heretics to “submit themselves one to another.” In short, Christ’s Body is more than simply an object of veneration—it contains rhetorical potency. In Christ’s Subversive Body: Practices of Religious Rhetoric in Culture and Politics, Olga Solovieva demonstrates how this rhetorical power has also been regularly and paradoxically deployed subversively, even iconoclastically. She does this by rooting her study of the rhetorical power of Christ’s Body in Paul’s highly rhetorical argument in 1 Corinthians 1.18-31 that Christ’s crucified Body profoundly challenges the powers of the world. Drawing on Dale Martin, Alam Badiou, and J. L. Austin, she proposes that Christ’s Body serves here a performative function—what she terms “an ideological operator” (10)—that both inaugurates and persuades: “It means not the destruction but the substitution of one system of meaning by another within a shared cultural horizon” (11). But because these rhetorical practices invariably result in the weakening of power, she interprets them as subversive rather than substitutionary. In Chapters 1–6, Solovieva carefully studies and explains how Christ’s Body is employed in this way in six completely disconnected historical situations: the iconoclasm of Epiphanius of Salamis, the 15th-century alchemical Book of the Holy Trinity, in the aesthetics of Johann Caspar Lavater, Dostoevsky’s Genealogy of Ethical Consciousness, the cinematography of Pier Paolo Pasolini, and by the Right in contemporary American politics. The span of genres covered here speaks not only to the breadth of Solovieva’s [End Page 88] expertise but also her particular perspective as a scholar of comparative literature. While some who may be interested in the underlying theology or ideological power of corpus Christi may find the basis for her broad comparative approach problematic, it would be hard to deny her ability to draw key insights from each of her case studies. Collectively, they also highlight how Christ’s Body has transcended confessional boundaries to shape the rhetoric and practices of people and groups even on the margins of Christian orthodoxy. For example, in her chapter on Epiphanius, Solovieva persuasively argues that one of the foundations for Epiphanius’s iconoclasm was his concern about the rhetorical impact of venerating the image of Christ on the Christian’s self-awareness of being part of the Body of Christ—in effect, seeing Christ’s Body compromised the worshiper’s sense of being Christ’s Body. Articulating this in the context of contemporary arguments (as in Eusebius) of church buildings functioning symbolically as Christ’s Body in zvhich Christians worship is enormously helpful. It allows the iconoclastic argument to move beyond mere aversion to idolatry (though that remains) and stand out more starkly as a challenge to Roman imperial power, the rhetoric of which was based in part on the worship of imperial images. Similar striking analyses abound in this volume. Solvovieva’s overall argument, however, is weakened by the disparity of her examples. While she does fine work in each chapter of demonstrating the cultural subversiveness of Christ’s Body, her lack of a conclusion that draws her argument together is striking in light of the expanse of time and genres she covers. Although each chapter is masterly in its grasp of...