text:
package org.wildfly.swarm.microprofile.faulttolerance.deployment;

import static org.wildfly.swarm.microprofile.faulttolerance.deployment.SynchronousCircuitBreaker.Status.CLOSED;
import static org.wildfly.swarm.microprofile.faulttolerance.deployment.SynchronousCircuitBreaker.Status.HALF_OPEN;
import static org.wildfly.swarm.microprofile.faulttolerance.deployment.SynchronousCircuitBreaker.Status.OPEN;

import java.time.Instant;
import java.time.temporal.ChronoUnit;
import java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicInteger;
import java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicLong;
import java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicReference;

import org.jboss.logging.Logger;
import org.wildfly.swarm.microprofile.faulttolerance.deployment.config.CircuitBreakerConfig;

import com.netflix.hystrix.HystrixCircuitBreaker;

/**
 * This is an implementation of the HystrixCircuitBreaker that is expected to be used synchronously by the HystrixCommand implementation to track the state of
 * the circuit. This is needed for the current TCK tests as monitoring circuit state in a background thread does not work with the TCK expectations.
 *
 * @see HystrixCommandInterceptor#SYNC_CIRCUIT_BREAKER_KEY
 */
class SynchronousCircuitBreaker implements HystrixCircuitBreaker {

    private static final Logger LOGGER = Logger.getLogger(SynchronousCircuitBreaker.class);

    enum Status {
        CLOSED, OPEN, HALF_OPEN;
    }

    SynchronousCircuitBreaker(CircuitBreakerConfig config) {
        this.config = config;
        this.status = new AtomicReference<>(CLOSED);
        this.circuitOpenedAt = new AtomicLong(-1);
        this.successCount = new AtomicInteger(0);
        this.failureCount = new AtomicInteger(0);
        this.halfOpenAttempts = new AtomicInteger(0);
        this.id = config.getMethodInfo();
    }

    @Override
    public void markSuccess() {
        // No-op, used by Hystrix to handle half-open state
    }

    @Override
    public void markNonSuccess() {
        // No-op, used by Hystrix to handle half-open state
    }

    @Override
    public synchronized boolean isOpen() {
        return circuitOpenedAt.get() >= 0;
    }

    @Override
    public synchronized boolean allowRequest() {
        // Allow next request if:
        // 1. circuit is CLOSED
        // 2. circuit is OPEN and specified delay passed
        // 3. circuit is HALF_OPEN and next attempt is allowed
        switch (status.get()) {
            case CLOSED:
                return true;
            case HALF_OPEN:
                return isHalfOpenAttemptAllowed();
            case OPEN:
                return isAfterDelay();
            default:
                return false;
        }
    }

    @Override
    public synchronized boolean attemptExecution() {
        // Allow next execution if:
        // 1. circuit is CLOSED
        // 2. circuit is HALF_OPEN and next attempt is allowed
        // 3. circuit is OPEN and specified delay passed - transition to HALF_OPEN
        switch (status.get()) {
            case CLOSED:
                return true;
            case HALF_OPEN:
                if (isHalfOpenAttemptAllowed()) {
                    halfOpenAttempts.incrementAndGet();
                    return true;
                }
                return false;
            case OPEN:
                if (isAfterDelay()) {
                    LOGGER.debugf("OPEN >> HALF_OPEN [id:%s]", id);
                    status.set(HALF_OPEN);
                    halfOpenAttempts.set(1);
                    resetCounts();
                    return true;
                }
                return false;
            default:
                return false;
        }
    }

    synchronized void executionSucceeded() {
        successCount.incrementAndGet();
        // Transition to CLOSED if HALF_OPEN and successThreshold reached
        if (HALF_OPEN == status.get() && isSuccessThresholdReached()) {
            LOGGER.debugf("HALF_OPEN >> CLOSED [id:%s]", id);
            status.set(CLOSED);
            circuitOpenedAt.set(-1);
            resetCounts();
        }
    }

    synchronized void executionFailed() {
        failureCount.incrementAndGet();
        // Transition to OPEN if HALF_OPEN
        // Transition to OPEN if CLOSED and failure threshold reached
        Status current = status.get();
        if (HALF_OPEN == current || (CLOSED == current && isFailureThresholdReached())) {
            LOGGER.debugf("%s >> OPEN [id:%s]", current, id);
            status.set(OPEN);
            circuitOpenedAt.set(System.currentTimeMillis());
            resetCounts();
        }
    }

    private boolean isAfterDelay() {
        long openedAt = circuitOpenedAt.get();
        long delay = config.get(CircuitBreakerConfig.DELAY);
        if (delay == 0) {
            return true;
        }
        ChronoUnit delayUnit = config.get(CircuitBreakerConfig.DELAY_UNIT);
        long elapsed;
        if (delayUnit.equals(ChronoUnit.MILLIS)) {
            elapsed = System.currentTimeMillis() - openedAt;
        } else {
            Instant start = Instant.ofEpochMilli(openedAt);
            Instant now = Instant.now();
            elapsed = delayUnit.between(start, now);
        }
        return elapsed >= delay;
    }

    private boolean isFailureThresholdReached() {
        int requestCount = getRequestCount();
        int requestVolumeThreshold = config.get(CircuitBreakerConfig.REQUEST_VOLUME_THRESHOLD);
        if (requestCount < requestVolumeThreshold) {
            return false;
        }
        double failureCheck = failureCount.get() / requestCount;
        double failureRatio = config.get(CircuitBreakerConfig.FAILURE_RATIO);
        return (failureCheck >= failureRatio) || (failureRatio <= 0 && failureCheck == 1);
    }

    private boolean isSuccessThresholdReached() {
        return successCount.get() >= config.get(CircuitBreakerConfig.SUCCESS_THRESHOLD, Integer.class);
    }

    private boolean isHalfOpenAttemptAllowed() {
        return halfOpenAttempts.get() < config.get(CircuitBreakerConfig.SUCCESS_THRESHOLD, Integer.class);
    }

    private int getRequestCount() {
        return successCount.get() + failureCount.get();
    }

    private void resetCounts() {
        successCount.set(0);
        failureCount.set(0);
    }

    private final AtomicReference<Status> status;

    private final AtomicLong circuitOpenedAt;

    private final CircuitBreakerConfig config;

    private final AtomicInteger successCount;

    private final AtomicInteger failureCount;

    private final AtomicInteger halfOpenAttempts;

    private final String id;

}


text:
Home » Weekly Torah Portion » Advanced » Between the Lines
The Tishrei Unit
Rosh Hashanah (Day 1: Genesis 21; Day 2: Genesis 22)
by Rabbi Abba Wagensberg
Greetings from the Holy City of Jerusalem!
The month of Tishrei incorporates the three major holidays of Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur and Sukkot. These give us an opportunity to improve the three major components of self: mind, heart and limbs.
Rosh Hashana is a holiday when we use our mind and intellect to serve God as we acknowledge and accept the sovereignty of God over the world. It is a time when we re-affirm our belief that God rules the world, and we contemplate our outlook and Jewish perspective on life. Even the name of the holiday - Rosh Hashana - 'Head of the Year' is indicative of the predominant involvement of the mind on this holiday.
Yom Kippur, however, is more of an emotional day as we pour out our hearts to God in prayer and supplication. It is a solemn and awesome time when we re-connect to God on an emotional level, therefore representing the heart, the second dimension of Man.
Finally, Sukkot represents the body/limbs, as it involves much movement and physical activity, for example, building a sukkah prior to the holiday, sleeping and eating in the sukkah, shaking the four species, and lots of dancing at Simchat Beit Hashoeva celebrations. It is a time when we serve God predominantly with our body.
THREE PATRIARCHS
We could suggest that these three holidays also symbolize the three Patriarchs. Rosh Hashana, which focuses on connecting to God with our mind, represents our forefather Yaakov who was deeply involved in Torah study (Genesis 25:27).
Yom Kippur is a day when we connect to God with our heart, representing the patriarch Yitzchak who also symbolizes this type of service. Yitzchak, at the Akeida, was willing to be offered up as a live sacrifice to God. As prayers nowadays serve as a substitute to offerings (Talmud - Brachot 26b). Prayer is referred to as 'service of the heart' (Talmud - Ta'anit 2a). Yitzchak represents prayer, connecting to God with the heart, and therefore shares the same essence as Yom Kippur. It should therefore not surprise us that the Akeida occurred on Yom Kippur!
Finally, the festival of Sukkot, which focuses primarily on serving God physically, represents Abraham who was renowned for his hospitality (see Genesis 21:23 and Talmud Sota 10b). Abraham was constantly involved in helping others, physically going out of his way to reach out to people in need. On Sukkot, we leave our homes and places of comfort and go out to the Sukkah, which is open to all who wish to enter. Sukkot is a time when the focus of our service to God is through physical acts of kindness, just as Abraham represents.
FOUR BLESSINGS
Although Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur are referred to as the High Holidays, it could be that Sukkot is actually the highest of holidays, as its essence, likened to that of Abraham, will ultimately bring about the final redemption. We read in Genesis 12:2 of God's blessing to Abraham. The verse can be divided into four parts as follows:
I will make you into a great nation.
I will bless you.
I will make your name great.
Tt will be for you a blessing.
Rashi explains that in the first part of the verse, God tells Abraham that he will become a great nation, indicating that he would be mentioned in the first blessing of the Amidah, as we read "Elokei Avraham."
In the second part of the promise, Rashi continues, God, in telling Abraham that he will be blessed, indicating that his son would also be mentioned in the liturgy, as we read, "Elokei Yitzchak." Finally, the third section of the verse, where God promises to make Abraham's name great, served as an indication to Abraham that his grandchild too would be mentioned in the first blessing of the Amidah, as we read, "Elokei Yaakov."
At this point, says Rashi, we may think that just as we mentioned the three Patriarchs at the beginning of the blessing, so should we conclude the blessing by mentioning all their names. However, God continues to bless Abraham saying, "It will be for you a blessing," suggesting that Abraham alone was chosen to be mentioned in the conclusion of the first blessing of the Amidah ("Magen Abraham"), as Rashi says, "With you [Abraham, the blessing] is sealed and not with them."
The Ba'al Shem Tov explains how God's blessing to Abraham indicated not just that he and his descendants will be mentioned in the liturgy in specific places, but also revealed how the whole of Jewish history would unfold. Beginning with the first major historical event for the Jewish nation - the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai - starting from that point in time and continuing until the Temple period, there would be a Tekufa shel Torah - 'An era of Torah', a period of time when serving God with the mind and intellect would be most predominant. Thus history would begin with a focus on the study of Torah, which is the essence of Yaakov.
Starting from the Temple period, the focus of serving God would be carried out through offerings, which corresponds nowadays to serving God through prayer, Avodah She'b'lev, thus symbolizing an era in which the essence of Yitzchak would predominate.
Finally, in the end of days, explains the Ba'al Shem Tov, the primary method of serving God in the era of the coming of Mashiach, will be serving God through acts of kindness to others, corresponding to the essence of our Patriarch Abraham.
This is how the Ba'al Shem Tov explains the deeper meaning of Rashi's statement, "With you [Abraham, the blessing] is sealed and not with them." Not only will the first blessing in the liturgy end with (mentioning the name of) Abraham, but also the whole of history will culminate with an era when the characteristic trait of Abraham, kindness will be the primary method in serving God. It is through these acts of kindness that we will merit the coming of the Mashiach.
This idea fits in perfectly with the verse in Leviticus 26:42 where, after warning Israel of the curses that would befall them if they deviated from God's word, God promises Israel, "[But] I will remember My covenant with Yaakov, and even My covenant with Yitzchak, and even My covenant with Abraham I will remember, and I will remember the Land [of Israel]." Many of the commentators are puzzled by the seeming lack of chronology in the listing of the Patriarchs and provide a plethora of approaches to answer this question. However, based on the approach of the Ba'al Shem Tov, this verse makes perfect sense, as it is exactly the order in which history will unfold!
(Following the mention of the covenant with Abraham (in Leviticus 26:42), which according to the Ba'al Shem Tov, refers to the end of days, the verses talk of the return to Israel, which connects to this time period, as God will gather all the Jews scattered across the world and return them to the land.)
ENTIRE BODY
We can now provide a deeper insight as to why the festival of Sukkot, which represents Abraham, is referred to in the Torah as Chag Ha'Asif - 'the festival of ingathering' (see Lev. 23:39). Based on the idea that Abraham represents the physical service of God through kindness, we could suggest that on Sukkot, we 'gather' all our limbs to serve God physically, performing kindness and good deeds to others. This could be why the general term Chag refers to Sukkot more than it refers to Passover and Shavuot (see Numbers 29:12), as the word Chag, when read backwards, spells out the letters gimmel and chet, which is the acronym for Gemilut Chasadim, acts of kindness.
The idea that Sukkot resembles the channeling of the physical body to serving God is hinted at in the four species, which symbolically represent different parts of the body, as each of the species share a similar shape to the corresponding body part. The Midrash (Vayikra Raba 30:14) explains that the Etrog (citron) symbolizes the heart, the myrtle branch is symbolic of the eye, the willow branch symbolizes the mouth and the palm branch, the spine. As King David expresses in Psalms 35:10, "All my bones say who is like you, God."
We could further suggest that the festival of Sukkot, symbolic of the essence of Abraham who reached out to all humanity in need, is a holiday of ingathering of the Jewish people themselves. This is hinted at in the Midrash (Vayikra Raba 30:12) where it describes how each of the four species represents different types of Jews. The etrog, which has a good taste and smell, is symbolic of a Jew who possesses both Torah and good deeds. The palm branch, which has a taste but no smell, represents the Jew who possesses Torah but no good deeds. The myrtle with its characteristic smell but lack of taste is symbolic of the Jew with good deeds but who lacks Torah. Finally the willow branch, with no smell or taste, symbolizes the Jew who lacks both Torah and good deeds. As we hold the four species together, we are imbibing the message of the need to respect and care for others regardless of background or religious level, just as Abraham exemplified.
May we all be blessed this year, as we gather around the table in our Sukkot, to understand the deeper meaning of the holiday and pull together all our limbs, performing acts of kindness for all types of Jews, thus unifying the Jewish people, and meriting the speedy arrival of the Messiah.
Rabbi Abba Wagensberg
Rabbi Abba Wagensberg is a disciple of Rabbi Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg, and is a popular lecturer in Jerusalem and throughout the Jewish world. Originally from New Jersey, he now lives in the Old City of Jerusalem.
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CARTERVILLE — It's not the 90-minute massage, personal trainers, or Olympic-sized swimming pool that impresses Brad Griffith the most about his job's surroundings. It's the fact that people are improving their health and feeling better about their bodies.
Derrick Snider, a personal trainer at the facility, agrees.
There is also a Massage Therapy Clinic located in the health facility. Ten-minute, 45-minute, 60-minute, and 90-minute massages are offered beginning at just $5.
The facility also has two swimming pools, including an Olympic-sized pool. A number of aquatic classes and swim lessons are offered.
The health facility is under the direction of the College's Continuing Education Department. Dr. Barry Hancock is dean for Community Education.
Hancock pointed out that the College participates in the nationwide "Silversneakers" program which allows free fitness membership, amenities, and fitness classes to qualifying senior citizens. There are hundreds who qualify throughout the College district.
To learn more about the health complex and what it offers, contact the College by calling 618-985-3741, Ext. 8502.


text:
HomeRoyal FamilyMeghan MarkleHow Diana Will Be Known For Little Baby Sussex: Harry and Meghan To Introduce Lady D For Their Child
How Diana Will Be Known For Little Baby Sussex: Harry and Meghan To Introduce Lady D For Their Child
730 May 15, 2019 | by Gaston
As we all know Baby Sussex is due anytime from now. There are even rumors that the prince or princess has been born already. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have made their wish about the birth of their baby known. They would like to keep the first few days of the birth of their baby intimate and discreet. This is the first time the birth of a Royal will be behind the scenes as all royals are birthed at St. Mary's hospital, Lindo wing and photographed the same day. Regardless of when we get to see the royal baby, we would be delighted to.
This is one fortunate baby as it will have lots of people to shower him/her with love and care. The baby has lots of people from its great-grandparents: the Queen, and Prince Phillips to its grandfather, Prince Charles and it's step-grandmother, Camilla, then Prince William, Kate Middleton and most especially Meghan and Harry.In spite of all of these people who will be lucky to see the baby, one person will be sorely missed in the gathering; Princess Diana. Princess Diana is the mother of Prince Harry, therefore, the grandmother of baby Sussex. She won't get to see the baby and this is sad.
HOW DID PRINCE HARRY COPE WITH HIS MOTHER'S LOSS?
The loss of a loved one hurts, more so losing a mother. Princess Diana died in 1999 in a car crash in Paris. Her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry were 15 and 12 years old respectively. The loss of their mother must have been overwhelming as they were both barely matured teenagers.
Prince Harry was quite closer to his mother as he found the incident incredibly desolating. He battled with the fact that his mother was no more. Being a royal and more so being in the public eyes didn't make things easy for him.
WILL THE ROYAL BABY BE NAMED AFTER DIANA?
There has been a guesstimate going around that when Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have their child and it's a girl, she'll be named Diana. This will be a tribute to the Prince's late mother. This idea is widely loved and encouraged as we all loved the Princess and this will be a great way to honor her.
Some fans also speculated that if the baby is male, he could also still be named after the late Princess. This will be done by naming the child Spencer which was Princess Diana's last name. The Duke and Duchess surely know that if the late Princess Diana was alive she would have loved the new addition to bits and would be ecstatic with the idea of the child being named after her.
THE OVERJOYED FIRST TIME GRANDMA
Doria Ragland, Meghan Markle's mother can't contain her joy as she will be welcoming her first grandchild soon. There has been news that she already journeyed across the pond to England to make sure that she is there to give Prince Harry and Meghan Markle emotional support and be present for the big day ahead.
Fans are hopeful that Doria Ragland will spend a considerable amount of time with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry to help them get to know about babies and their baby specifically. How blissful is it for Meghan Markle to have her mum right there at Windsor to help her at this crucial time in her life.
BABY SUSSEX WILL KNOW ITS PATERNAL GRANDMOTHER
Princess Diana is dead but certainly not forgotten and we are quite sure the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will tell their child about her. Prince Harry and Meghan will make sure Diana's legacy lives on as they will present her to the child through stories, photographs, and every possible means.
Read More: Queen Elizabeth is not happy about Meghan Markle modernizing royal tradition.
There are uncountable documented videos of Princess Diana sharing the love all over the world. She was compassionate in her lifetime. As the child grows up, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will have lots of mediums with which to paint exactly who the Princess was in all her glory and beauty. The child will get to know all of the thoughtful and nice things Princess Diana did for a lot of people all over the world.
WHAT ARE THE CHANCES OF BABY SUSSEX BEING NAMED "DIANA?"
Everyone all over the world, especially the British are expecting the royal baby to pop out anytime from now. The couple, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have claimed not to know the gender of the baby. And maybe they do, but they chose to keep it private. Anyways, they must have been discussing the possible names for their child. The name of the baby will definitely be British despite its mother, Meghan Markle being American. Well, one of England's new preferred hobby is booking odds of the name for the impending heir. We are aware of the fact that he or she will be an heir to the throne, seventh in line following his or her father Prince Harry. Notwithstanding, you don't have to be British to wager in, there are online betting sites.
Read More: It turns out that Meghan and Harry might not have custody of their first child.
The public's most liked boy names are Albert and Phillip, each with 12/1 odds right now on 'Ladbrokes.' Alfred and James come in 16/1, Alexander also has 20/1 odds, and Charles and Edward are lower down at 33/1 odds. 'The Daily Mail' shares Arthur and Edward as selected names for a boy. Without any doubt, if the baby is a boy, he'll be warmly welcomed by all of England, but it really seems like the country wants a baby girl. Probabilities are, Brits most likely want a daughter to be named Diana after Harry's late mother. The existent 'Ladbrokes' odds are 6/1. Victoria is running closely behind at 8/1. Other possibilities include Alice at 12/1, Elizabeth and Mary at 16/1, and Alexandra or Grace at 20/1.
'The Daily Mail' agrees with another online betting site, 'William Hill' with 10/1 odds for the name Diana. It won't be the first time the late Princess Diana is being honored by her children naming their kids after her; that is if Harry does so. Prince William and Kate Middleton's daughter Charlotte's middle name is Diana.
We really await impatiently the birth of the royal baby of Sussex. We wonder what gender it will be and what it will be named. Till we know, we'll keep our fingers crossed. Do you think it's a boy or a girl? Do you think if it's a girl she'll be named after the late Princess Diana? Let us know what you think in the comment section and share this article with a royal fan today.
Sources: CheatSheet, CheatSheet.
Get Excited With More Royal Articles Here:
Buckingham Palace Gives an Official Update on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's Baby.
Eugenie and Harry's Wedding Photos Have One 'Sad' Difference That Says A Lot About The Royal Family.
Prince Charles Was Crying Before His Wedding Day And Prince Harry May Not Be Charles' Son.
How Kate Middleton Treats Her Children Due To Their Royal Status.
Sarah Ferguson And Prince Andrew Reportedly Are More Than Friends Now


Xylem has been included on Fortune's 2018 "Change the World" list, a ranking of 50 companies that have made a significant social impact through their core business strategy. Listed as number 7 in the ranking, Xylem has been recognized for creating tangible social value through its innovative solutions that are helping to solve water challenges across the world.
Now in its fourth year, Fortune's "Change the World" list ranks companies using factors including measurable social impact, business results, degree of innovation and corporate integration. Notable Xylem initiatives recognized by Fortune include the Company's ongoing work to help strengthen cities' resilience so they are better equipped to cope with the impact of climate change and natural disasters, and Xylem's actions to advance smart water solutions. The Company's role in supporting the Thai cave rescue mission was also noted. A team of Xylem engineers worked with the Thai authorities to re-configure the dewatering pumps in place at the cave, increasing pumping capacity by 40 percent and enabling the successful rescue of the young soccer team and their coach.


text:
Reading: Mother's Milk and Menstrual Blood in Puncture: The Monstrous Feminine in Contemporary Horror...
Special Collection: Queer Milk
Queer Milk Special Cluster
Mother's Milk and Menstrual Blood in Puncture: The Monstrous Feminine in Contemporary Horror Films and Late Medieval Imagery
Rachel Frances Sharpe,
University of Glasgow, GB
About Rachel Frances
Visual artist Rachel Sharpe (b. Blackpool, 1988) graduated from the MFA at The Glasgow School of Art in 2017. Sharpe will be exhibiting her current project How Strange When an Illusion Dies at Leith Theatre, as part of the Hidden Door Festival in Edinburgh, May 2018. Recent exhibitions of work include the group show Pokey Hat for Glasgow International 2016, and Who Owns the Cone at the Likky Ruth Project Space in Brooklyn NYC.
Sophie Sexon
Sophie Sexon is an AHRC-funded PhD candidate at the University of Glasgow. Their doctoral thesis concerns trans-historical interpretations of wound imagery, entitled, 'Queering the Wounds of Christ in Late Medieval Text-Image and Contemporary Performance Art'. A forthcoming article regarding this subject is due to be published in the volume Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography by Amsterdam University Press in 2019.
This film essay Puncture, by Rachel Frances Sharpe, and accompanying paper, by Sophie Sexon, examine the abject qualities of blood and breastmilk. The film and paper make comparisons between late medieval imagery of Christ's wounds and feminine tropes found recurrently in horror movies such as Suspiria (1977) and Possession (1981). The application of Julia Kristeva's theoretical notion of the abject and Barbara Creed's concept of the monstrous-feminine will demonstrate how blood and milk inspire a particular horror of the female body that renders the body monstrous. This can be seen trans-historically by comparing medieval to modern conceptions of abject maternity. The analysis will look at the fungible quality of milk and blood in historical contexts and their ability to create feelings of fear and repulsion towards maternal icons and women's bodies. This paper has been adapted from the original, presented at the Fluid Physicalities symposium at Birkbeck, University of London, in 2017.
How to Cite: Sharpe, R.F. and Sexon, S., 2018. Mother's Milk and Menstrual Blood in Puncture: The Monstrous Feminine in Contemporary Horror Films and Late Medieval Imagery. Studies in the Maternal, 10(1), p.10. DOI: http://doi.org/10.16995/sim.256
Published on 01 Aug 2018
Available for download here: https://doi.org/10.16995/sim.256.s1.
When the eyes see or the lips touch that skin on the surface of milk – harmless, thin as a sheet of cigarette paper, pitiful as a nail paring – I experience a gagging sensation and, still farther down, spasms in the stomach, the belly; and all the organs shrivel up the body, provoke tears and bile, increase heartbeat, cause forehead and hands to perspire. Along with sight-clouding dizziness, nausea makes me balk at that milk cream, separates me from the mother and father who proffer it. "I" want none of that element, sign of their desire; "I" do not want to listen, "I" do not assimilate it, "I" expel it. But since the food is not an "other" for "me," who am only in their desire, I expel myself, I spit myself out, I abject myself within the same motion through which "I" claim to establish myself.1
Film still from Puncture, Rachel Frances Sharpe, 2017.
This paper explores the role of milk and blood in both medieval art and contemporary film with a response to the film essay Puncture, as featured above. The paper applies Julia Kristeva's theoretical concept of abjection and Barbara Creed's definition of the monstrous-feminine to both historical periods in order to show how the female body is conceived of as abject in distinct cultural moments that have recognisable overlap.
The female body has a cultural and critical history of being conceived of as monstrous owing to certain maternal associations in critical and theoretical discourses. The conceptual notion of the female body as that which is monstrous is conceived via its fluid outpourings. The appearance of milk and blood remind us of the figure of the mother and her role in relation to us as distinct subjects. As Julia Kristeva has argued, the maternal female body threatens social order and semantic cleanliness in that it produces fluids which transgress the bodily boundaries of the flesh (Kristeva, 1980). The symbolic associations of mother's milk and menstrual blood induce a reaction of horror from the observing subject, who associates these fluids with a monstrous form of maternity.
The female body collapses the boundaries between self and other via reproduction. The reproductive capacity produces substances that bring the internal to the external; birthing, bleeding and breastfeeding. In socio-cultural terms, these traits cast the mother figure as an abject monster: that which dissolves the borders between the flesh and the world.
The abject refers to a subject's first distinction between self and other that is precipitated by certain fluids relating to the mother figure. I use Julia Kristeva's psychoanalytic theory of abjection in Powers of Horror (1980) as it touches on both psychic and social states of self-awareness and identity formation. The abject is that which 'disturbs identity, system, order. What does not respect border, positions, rules' (Kristeva, p. 2). For instance, a wound disturbs bodily order by rupturing boundaries, aligning it with the other 'corporeal orifices…constituting the body's territory' (Kristeva, p. 71). Certain abject substances including urine, tears, faeces, blood, semen and milk must be cast off, literally abjected, as they threaten social and bodily order. Abject reactions to such substances in later life include horror, disgust, vomiting and gagging, however, they also evoke some feelings of enjoyment which elucidate our strange attraction to horror films and gore. Kristeva posits that abjection is a crucial stage in psychosexual development, associating the abject with the Lacanian notion of jouissance that pre-dates the infantile mirror-stage, noting that jouissance in itself engenders violent, painful, yet pleasurable passion. As Georges Bataille notes in Visions of Excess, 'extreme seductiveness is probably at the boundary of horror',2 which is inextricably bound up with the obsessive act of looking at that which horrifies us. Historical comparisons of how abject substances relating to motherhood elicit a sexual response in the visual terrain of the modern horror film and medieval imagery help us to understand the sexualisation and objectification of the female body at this boundary of horror, which edges insistently towards pleasure.
Barbara Creed writes in Film, Feminism and Psychoanalysis: The Monstrous Feminine (1993) that 'all human societies have a conception of the monstrous-feminine, of what it is about woman that is shocking, terrifying, horrific, abject'.3 This paper interrogates this claim by comparing late medieval paintings and metaphorical imagery concerning Christ's wounds to the monstrous feminine as identified in two horror films: Dario Argento's Suspiria (1977) and Andrzej Zİuławski's Possession (1981). Images of abject bodily fluids placed together frame by frame in Puncture (2017) with shots of medieval art and contemporary horror films show how such images inscribe a universalising historical idea of the monstrous-feminine, substantiating Creed's argument.
Utilizing a theory of Kristevan abjection has the potential to be problematic.4 Feminist discourses relating to feminine 'otherness' have moved away from the conceptual abject in order to critique the negative and immobile values ascribed to the maternal through such a regimented essentialist biological focus.5 This analysis and video essay are not constructed as feminist critiques of abjection, monstrosity, and their relation to the maternal body. Rather, they signal the cultural moments where theoretical notions of abject maternity in the twentieth century may have had similar aestheticising resonances with creative works from the medieval period, both fraught with their own misogynistic structuring. To make such aesthetic comparison is more in line with queer theoretical works on time and affect that demonstrate where contemporary literature, film, and art meet medieval materials than contemporary feminist discourses that challenge the notions of abjection and monstrosity.6
I use the concept of abjection to historically contextualise a moment in theoretical discourse that has subsequent resonances in the horror films of the late seventies and early eighties. Kristeva's theory aligns with the rough time of production of these horror films, the film Suspiria being released in 1977, Kristeva's Powers of Horror having appeared in 1980, and the film Possession in 1981. I use this theoretical approach to support Imogen Tyler's argument that 'employing a Kristevan abject paradigm risks reproducing, rather than challenging, histories of violent disgust towards maternal bodies' (Tyler, p. 77). The use of the abject in this article demarcates, but does not critically challenge, a particular theoretical historical moment where the maternal body is characterised by a number of negative physical attributes. This has a direct relation to a late medieval history of the maternal body, where disgust typifies a reaction to the aspects of abject femininity that are imbued in representations of Christ.
Barbara Creed's theory of 'the monstrous feminine' appears somewhat later than the theory of abjection, in 1993, but distinctly exemplifies how maternal bodies are particularised within the horror genre, and imbued with historically negative notions of abjection. At the beginning of the 1990s various discourses were emerging around the notion of the female 'other' in anglophone feminist literatures. Feminist theoretical discourses sought to move away from the biological essentialism of the monstrous in order to reconceive of the female body in materialist terms, for example in the concept of the female other as cyborg. Cyborg theory emerges around the same time as Creed's publication, with Donna Haraway publishing Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature in 1991.7 However, I focus here on the concept of the feminine monstrous as it aligns maternity with a fixed set of abject values that are concurrently symbolic, psychosexual, and in many cases, physical. I use this theory not as a tool of feminist critique, but to underscore a language of negativity surrounding discourses of maternity in the twentieth century that are historically congruent with medieval values and modes of representation. The hope is to demonstrate how these theories can be applied across time and across discipline, choosing to use theoretical frameworks that are roughly contemporary to the production of abject imagery in the horror films discussed here. Puncture bears the echoes, in other words, of the cultural moment where maternal abjection was at the peak of its monstrous manifestation, produced by male film makers that reified a biologically essentialist and abject feminine other.
Creed lists a number of monstrous tropes that define women in film:
The horror film is populated by female monsters […] The female monster, or monstrous-feminine, wears many faces […] woman as monstrous womb (The Brood, 1979); woman as bleeding wound (Dressed to Kill, 1980); woman as possessed body (The Exorcist, 1973) […] the monstrous girl-boy (A Reflection of Fear, 1973) […] Although a great deal has been written about the horror film, very little of that work has discussed the representation of woman-as-monster (Creed, p. 1).
Creed's analysis shows how women are commonly presumed to be constructed as the diametric opposite of the monster within the horror film genre when, antithetically, they themselves are constructed as monsters through this series of tropes. By historical comparison, the figure of Christ was commonly constructed as feminine in European late medieval devotional text and imagery. This female Christ was, by virtue of symbolic association with motherhood, also conceived of as monstrous. Looking specifically at the tropes of woman as bleeding wound and woman as monstrous girl-boy, I will compare and contrast the role of the abject in constructing these tropes, while discussing the imagery in Puncture that illustrates clear visual parallels between medieval and the modern images of the monstrous-feminine.
The Medieval Abject: Looking at Christ as a Mother
Kristeva notes that abjection is a crucial moment in terms of self-identification and identity formation, recognising that materials such as blood and breastmilk are those which transgress the boundaries of the flesh. The abject stage is characterised by the destabilising of known boundaries; a horror of insides becoming outsides and the shock of knowing the self to be separate from the previous bounds of the maternal. Many of the excretory functions, or symbolic icons linked to the abject, relate to the symbolic icons of motherhood. Blood and the open wound refer back to the moment of birth where subject-object relations are still ill-defined, and a pre-social infantile self cannot distinguish the boundaries between their own flesh and the mother's womb. Abject fluids must be expelled in order for the infant to make sense of its world and establish subject-object boundaries, which exist primarily in relation to the mother, and then, by extension, to the clean and proper self within society. The sight of maternal fluids such as blood and breastmilk create an abject reaction by threatening a return to disordered subject-object relationships and a loss of self-identity.
In some cases, the symbolic impact of abject fluids renders them interchangeable within the psyche. Kristeva lists and discusses the metaphorical import of many abject substances in Powers of Horror, and a large range of them recurrently appear in horror films intermingled with one another. The interchangeable abject quality of semen, milk, blood and tears was likewise a prominent feature in the iconography of the Middle Ages. The late medieval female body bore aspects of monstrosity as it was believed to be the inverted or imperfect version of the male body. According to Aristotle and Galen, women were considered to be the cold, wet and incomplete counterparts to the heat-generative dry male, therefore constantly seeking the heat of male bodies in a frenzied state of perpetual lust. The female body was characterised by this abject moistness which was inextricably bound up with moral judgements and impositions on female sexuality. Liz Herbert McAvoy recognises how the female body was a 'primary conceptual sign. In her capacity as misconceived or 'deformed' male, woman occupied a highly problematic cultural space and frequently became translated into an expression of cultural monstrosity'.8 Her moist qualities rendered her culturally inferior to her male counterpart.
Elizabeth Robertson describes how physicians believed the female ovaries to be an inverted form of the male testes and identifies that many physicians of the period believed in the Galenic theory of dealbation; a belief that breastmilk was created from blood transformed from within the body. Robertson identifies that this medical belief in the fungible quality of fluids bore out in the culture of the period as 'in religious texts the interchangeability of blood, milk, tears, and semen is often stressed'.9 This chimes with Creed's notion of woman as monstrous girl-boy, as the 'inverted' monstrous female was imbued with a number of negative attributes linked to abject fluids. It was believed that women were capable of purging their excessive moistness, and therefore purging their inappropriate lustfulness, through menstruation. Therefore blood was both a generative substance and a fluid that had to be abjected in order to accord with certain moral impositions; a fluid that acted as a controlling mechanism depending on whether it was being produced internally or being expelled. Upon its expulsion from the body it gained symbolic transitional qualities that signified its monstrosity; the appearance of breastmilk reminding one that the female body had converted this substance from blood, and blood being a substance that signified the excessive lustful aspects of femininity. The property of creating transitional fluids is a particular quality of the monster that is evidenced in gendered terms in representations of the abject in both medieval imagery and modern horror films.
This particularly feminised form of monstrosity can be seen in artistic and literary iconography depicting Christ in the late medieval period, and it relates to a conception of the monstrous feminine that can be seen in modern cinema. Barbara Creed defines the monstrous feminine in film in saying that, 'the monstrous is produced at the border which separates those who take up their proper gender roles from those who do not; or the border is between normal and abnormal sexual desire' (Creed, p. 11). Christ's body inhabits this monstrosity by deconstructing proper gender roles in artistic representation. A common artistic trope in Europe from the twelfth century onwards was that of 'Jesus as mother', where Christ's body was imbued with a range of maternal qualities to associate his body with the capacity to physically and spiritually nourish Christian devotees. In an assessment of visual piety in the Late Middle Ages, Suzannah Biernoff writes that 'Christ's body is semantically unstable. It signifies excessively. And it is literally fluid in its outpourings of redemptive blood: an attribute often associated with the 'maternal Jesus'.10 Christ's semantic instability varies in a number of ways, but the feminisation of the body seems inherently wrapped up in the production of fluids. Christ's body assimilates femininity by manner of its bleeding, which mimics both lactation and menstruation, constructing Christ as an icon simultaneously capable of being a mother and a lover.
Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen, Man of Sorrows, 1510, Museum Mayer van den Bergh, Antwerp. File reproduced by Wikicommons licence.
Caroline Walker Bynum's landmark text Jesus as Mother (1982) collates a wealth of textual and artistic sources from the medieval period which were intended to encourage a religious devotee to think of Christ's body in explicitly maternal terms.11 Note that this text was also produced in a period coterminous with the publication of Kristeva's text and the release of the films analysed here; exemplifying a distinct theoretical-cultural moment in time in which scholars were thinking about the role of abject maternity. Images such as The Man of Sorrows by Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen demonstrate how bodily fluids intermingle and exchange in late medieval imagery. The tears from Christ's eyes seem to run down to become the blood upon his breast, and the blood from his wounds flows into the holy chalice to nourish and provide sustenance for the devoted, much like a lactating breast. The English abbot Aelred of Rievaulx uses a number of metaphorical images concerning Christ that resemble this; 'his outspread arms will invite you to embrace him, his naked breasts will feed you with the milk of sweetness to console you' (Bynum, Jesus as Mother, p. 123).
Many of these metaphors emphasise Christ's capability as a consoling mother, however, there are passages where the substances issuing from Christ's wounds are fungible and, arguably, would inspire an erotic response:
Then one of the soldiers opened his side with a lance and there came forth blood and water. Hasten, linger not, eat the honeycomb with your honey, drink your wine with your milk. The blood is changed into wine to gladden you, the water into milk to nourish you. From the rock streams have flowed for you, wounds have been made in his limbs, holes in the wall of his body, in which, like a dove, you may hide while you kiss them one by one. Your lips, stained with blood, will become like a scarlet ribbon and your word sweet. (Bynum, Jesus as Mother, p. 123)
This union with Christ portrays how a bloody and goring act – the repeated spearing of Christ's flesh – creates holes which the lover can enter and kiss. In a metaphorical gesture, the horror of the bleeding wounds is transported into an image of tenderness. There were, however, prohibitive cautions regarding wound imagery as it was recognised that sucking at these wounds which pour forth blood and milk might inspire an erotic response. Bernard of Clairvaux urges devotees that, 'if you feel the stings of temptation […] suck not so much the wounds as the breasts of the Crucified [suge non tam vulnera quam ubera Crucifixi] He will be your mother, and you will be his son' (Bynum, Jesus as Mother, p. 117). These wounds break down the barriers between appropriate and inappropriate sexualised responses to the body. Christ's body is entered by the protruding fingers and tongues of devotees, his penetrated wound encapsulating the monstrous aspects of motherhood by bleeding like a menstruating vagina or lactating like a mother's breast. Puncture shows comparisons between a shot of a finger pushing into the hardened skin of rotting milk and the finger that pushed into Christ's wound in Caravaggio's The Incredulity of Saint Thomas (c.1601). Both acts have an air of the horrific and the erotic by penetrating the whiteness of the flesh to signal an encounter with the dark and mysterious interior.
In Puncture we see a range of medieval paintings and manuscript illuminations which focus specifically on Christ's wounds. In medieval contexts, Christ fits Creed's filmic trope of woman as bleeding wound via metonym, whereby his whole body is translated into one powerful devotional image of a bleeding wound. There is symbolic proximity of the wound to the female labia and vagina in late medieval imagery. Michael Camille writes:
Medievalists, recently freed from a tyrannous propriety that for so long obfuscated the body as a site of cultural meaning, are at last able to describe and trace this verbal and visual gender-bending, where parts of Christ's body, such as his wound, as depicted in fourteenth-century Books of Hours, becomes a vast vagina-like object of desire, a transference of the dangerously open body of woman in all her horrifying 'difference.'12
It would have been appropriate for late medieval devotees to adore the Christ wound as part of Christ's male body. Wound images show signs of having been touched, kissed or rubbed in medieval manuscripts. However, the capacity to induce both horror and erotic response arises from its feminine symbolic association with the vagina. Kissing the manuscript but could render erotic abject reaction to Christ's feminised body.
Looking at the Loftie prayerbook shown below, the five wounds of Christ show evidence of having been touched by the lips or fingers of the devotee, noting in particular the abrasion of the pigment in the lower two wounds. These images are painted on parchment made of dead animal skin.13 This material use circumvents any moral sense of medieval social transgression. Touching animal skin would not have presented the same threat as scandalously touching human skin, and as it is not living flesh it would not have verisimilitude to a human body. However, the devotee could have traced hairs and folds in the vellum to imaginatively bring this skin to life, this monstrous skin which is imbued with abject erotic significance. Mark Amlser writes that:
A reader wouldn't actually have to read the book or even the words on the page to affectively respond to the image […] The reader's hand or lips search the image on the page, the dark space ambiguously depicting the wound (vulna) as vagina (vulva), with a reading gesture at once sacred, erotic, scandalous, and transgressive.14
Five wounds of Christ, Loftie Hours, Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, Walters Ms. W.165, Loftie Hours, fol. 110v. Image supplied under creative commons licence by The Digital Walters.
In this private devotional gesture, readers could animate the red pigment of their prayer books by mixing it with their own fluids such as saliva and sweat; animating the blood of Christ on the page and arousing feelings of abjection by kissing dead animal skin.
The Modern Abject; Looking at Mothers in Film
Puncture draws our attention to the affinities between eyes, mouths, and wounds, foregrounding the symbolic vaginal potentialities of all three, and relating to Georges Bataille's comment that 'it seems impossible, in fact, to judge the eye using any word other than seductive' (Bataille, p. 17). The eye, the open mouth, the open wound and the vagina merge with one another and overlap in Puncture. Images from medieval manuscript illuminations are placed comparatively next to images of bleeding wounds.
The most explicit comparison between the two in Puncture is between an image of Christ's vertically orientated side wound in the Psalter of Bonne of Luxembourg (c.1348), and the following shot of scored and bloodied flesh which echoes an early scene in Dario Argento's Suspiria. At the opening of Suspiria a young woman named Pat Hingle is stabbed in the heart repeatedly. The film lingers on an intense close up of Hingle's stabbed heart which lies open in the wounded whiteness of the flesh of her chest, resembling the interior of the vagina and cervix. It is impossible to ignore the vaginal and erotic connotations of such imagery, particularly in horror films invoking the trope of woman as bleeding wound.
The horror film offers apt visual terrain to examine the effect of abject fluids in proximity to the female body. Creed notes that the horror film abounds with images of abjection when it addresses sweat, vomit, blood and gore (Creed, 1993). Noting how this relates to theoretical abjection, she writes that, 'in terms of Kristeva's notion of the border, when we say such-and-such a horror film 'made me sick' or 'scared the shit out of me', we are actually foregrounding that specific horror film as a 'work of abjection' or 'abjection at work' – almost in a literal sense' (Creed, p. 10). I wish here to focus specifically on the abject qualities of a film that is referenced in Puncture: Andrzej Zıuławski's Possession (1981).
Psalter and Prayer Book of Bonne of Luxembourg, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters MS. 69.86, fol. 331r. Image reproduced by Wikicommons licence.
Film still of Pat Hingle's stabbed heart from Suspiria, Dario Argento, 1977.
Possession focuses on the breakdown of a marriage between a woman called Anna and her absented husband, Mark. Mark uncovers an affair that Anna is having with her lover Heinreich. However, it transpires that Anna is also having an affair with a horrific creature composed of pulsating and oiled flesh that appears to excrete milk and blood. Anna repeatedly comments that she has made love to the creature, and in doing so, the creature has not only entered her, but it has bodily possessed her, bidding her to do its murderous will and to neglect her husband and her son.
Still image of the creature from Possession, Andrzej Żulawski, 1981.
To return to Creed's remark on how the border is central to our construction of what is monstrous, this idea can be applied to the monster in the film. It transgresses borders by portraying mixed gendered characteristics and by inspiring unnatural sexual desire. Creed writes that 'most horror films also construct a border between what Kristeva refers to as 'the clean and proper body' and the abject body, or the body which has lost its form and integrity' (Creed, p. 11). The monster in Possession is a perfect example of this, as it presents as a male-female hybrid in its formlessness. It nestles within the folds of a bed or a wall resembling a vagina, yet has a protruding phallic head that can elongate at will. It resembles living, pulsating flesh as it appears to breathe and lactate with virulent life force, but also resembles mottled dead skin in its pale coloration and rotting appearance. It simultaneously looks like a baby being born as it is covered in natal fluids, yet it also resembles the fleshly interior of the womb turned out to the viewer's eye. Anna's possession by the monster causes her to replicate some of these features, thus transferring monstrous qualities to the female body. However, this visual effect reinstates how certain abject qualities of femininity and maternity are 'naturally' monstrous by layering the functions of bleeding and lactating onto the horrifying creature. Creed notes that because of the relation between the feminine and the menstrual, women have an insuperable relation to the abject, and this is borne out by Anna's body which bleeds and lactates profusely.
Anna's sexual attraction to the monster seems incomprehensible given its horrific and hybrid nature. However, this sexual union is important in order to ensure that Anna is invested in the destruction of anything that threatens reproductive capability within the narrative. The monster commands her to eliminate any threats to the nuclear family model and in doing so, replaces not only the husband and father, but also engenders itself as a protective mother that instils heteronormative order within the plot. The first two characters that Anna murders by the monster's command are the detective who uncovers Anna's affair with the creature and his male partner Zimmermann; those whom threaten the heterosocial order by virtue of their homosexuality. The next is the Anna's previous adulterous lover Heinreich, thus eliminating the threat to the homogenous family unit. Anna then slits the throat of her friend Margie, who originally attempted to help Anna cover up her affair with Heinreich, and who has threatened the social order of the family unit by sleeping with her husband. The murders all feature abject fluids, for instance, Zimmermann is beaten to death with a jar of milk, and Margie dramatically bleeds to death. The film relies heavily on the use of abject fluids to inspire horror and fear, which is then focused back on Anna's maternal body. The way Anna excretes these fluids throughout the film constructs a clear image of the monstrous-feminine by associating her body with death, destruction and lust.
The colours associated with Anna's clothing throughout Possession are mirrored in the fabrics and lighting of Puncture. Whiteness symbolises innocence and virginity, blue symbolises motherhood and Marian imagery, and red symbolises blood and the disorder that ensues when the female body transitions from virginity into motherhood. In Puncture we are unable to ascertain what is blood and what is milk on blue and red-lit fabric. Images of blood, milk and tears mix with one another and excrete from female eyes and mouths in a variety of film clips, bringing with them their own red, white and blue fluid associations. The films clips are juxtaposed with images from Rogier Van Der Weyden's Descent from the Cross (c.1435) portraying the open vaginal wound in Christ's hand and the Virgin Mary weeping in her blue dress. The comparisons show how colour associations from late medieval paintings retain their meanings when transferred to contemporary contexts.
The colour scheme of Anna's clothing within Possession demonstrates the monstrous contradictions that exist within the mother, particularly in the figure of the Virgin Mary. In Possession Anna always wears a blue dress which contrasts with her pale white skin and bright red blood. Anna's blue dress produces Marian echoes, signifying her status as primary maternal figure. Her character struggles between the polar extremes of being the Virgin Mary and the monstrous female. The mixture of red, white and blue perfectly expresses the contradictions in this Marian representation; if Anna is a mother and a virgin and a lover, the fluids her body produces are at odds. She must menstruate and produce milk while still maintaining virginity and purity against this fluid disorder.
Still of the shard in Pat Hingle's arm, from Suspiria, Dario Argento, 1977.
Puncture foregrounds the virgin-lover contradiction by focusing on film stills taken from Argento's Suspiria. Early in the film, a young girl, Pat Hingle, is stabbed to death while wearing a white gown; her white flesh punctured by shards of blue glass that contrast starkly with her flowing red blood. The colour contrasts symbolically associate whiteness with innocence and virginity. Hingle's murder symbolically changes her representational role from that of being a virgin into a monstrous object of unspeakable feminine horror. The violent stabbing scene is metaphorically reminiscent of the loss of virginity. The intense focus on the opening of her chest reveals a bloodied wound and a pulsating heart which looks not only like a vagina, but also like the pulsating monster in Possession. For both Anna and Pat, what makes them monstrous is a proximity to a pulsating dark interior wound, and to a metaphorical loss of virginity which threatens the boundaries of social order. Hingle is penetrated by blue shards of glass; the institution of motherhood visually penetrating her white flesh in symbolic association with the colour blue. These colour schemes recur repeatedly across time and show how feminine monstrosity is depicted as an awkward juxtaposition of roles; it is impossible to be a virgin, a lover and a mother simultaneously in one body. The horror of this plays out in the mixing of the abject fluids of breastmilk and blood staining Anna's blue gown in Possession.
Still image of Anna's breakdown from Possession, Andrzej Żulawski, 1981.
In Possession, one of the expressions of Anna's bodily transgression of gendered boundaries occurs in relation to Christ's iconography. In a church scene, there are explicit visual links drawn between Anna and a carved wooden figure of Christ. The composition of the film depicts her with the same flowing hair as the Christ figure in a shot-reverse-shot sequence. Standing beneath the carving, Anna makes near animalistic sounds. In this moment she resembles the male Christ depicted on the cross. However, her animalistic sounds also resemble the grieving virgin Mary who is unable to annunciate pain and suffering. This scene of gender transgression where Christ's male body is layered over Anna's female body precedes a scene of complete psychological and symbolic collapse in the passenger tunnel beneath a subway station. Anna breaks down in a screaming miscarriage of milk and blood moments after she has left the church. This horrific scene resulted in a ban on the film's screening in many European cities and in the UK.15 It was rendered so disturbing not only by virtue of Isabelle Adjani's striking improvised performance, but by the extreme use of fluids. Anna screams and writhes, beating her body against the walls of the subway tunnel. There is a veritable effluence of blood and milk that seeps from concealed bags attached to Anna's body which burst all over her blue gown and flood from between her legs. The sheer excess of the scene confronts misogynistic fears concerning maternal bodies; that there is something truly and horrifyingly abject about a body that can produce such a volume of fluid.
Kristeva argues that the abject is necessary to establish order in the subject's world as it embeds a fear of collapsed subject-object boundaries and, ultimately, of death. Abjection provides a crucial moment of dis-identification with the mother that signals an entry into the symbolic order for the subject. However, the abject repels using the same gesture by which it attracts. Childhood abject associations are relics left in the psyche that later invite eroticised horror at any of the symbols associated with motherhood and femininity. As Creed writes, 'although the subject must exclude the abject, the abject must, nevertheless, be tolerated for that which threatens to destroy life also helps to define life.' (Creed, p. 9) This is an attempt to explain our fascination with and attraction to scenes of maternal abjection; a fascination that has symbolically played out for hundreds of years in terms of visual art and metaphorical language. Abject fluids feature often in the symbolism of theological imagery as Christ's blood is shed, flowing like mother's milk to cleanse all sins. The abject plays a role in medieval Christian imagery and narratives as much as it does in contemporary horror movies where the bleeding, lactating body is both a reminder of our maternal origins and a depiction of a body that is imbued with eroticism by means of pushing the boundary limits between the internal and external.
The associations between vomit, blood, bile, faeces, urine, sweat, tears and semen point to one another as fungible materials, and they highlight the exchangeable orifices of the body, particularly in terms of the feminine-monstrous. The representational appearance of these substances makes monstrous the body issuing them. The film essay Puncture provides clear visual comparison between medieval images and images from modern horror films to support Barbara Creed's claim that 'all human societies have a conception of the monstrous-feminine' (Creed, 1993, p. 1). In the case of mother's milk and menstrual blood, the mother's body is historically inscribed with the features of the monstrous feminine by production of abject fluids. The images in Puncture aestheticise a particular moment in film history where the disembodied and suppurating parts of the female body were intently focused upon to evoke a particularly horrific construction of maternity. This moment had historical precedent in the medieval. The theoretical application of abjection to medieval materials and comparative visual analysis demonstrates that this misogynous monstrosity is by no means an isolated creation of modernity but has far farther reaches in the historical imaginary concerning maternity that can be brought to light by creative means.
1Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, trans. by Leon S. Roudiez (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), pp. 2–3.
2Georges Bataille, Visions of Excess; Selected Writings 1927–1939, trans. and ed. by Allan Stoekl (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985), p. 17.
3Barbara Creed, The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 1.
4Imogen Tyler's 2009 article refutes the theoretical demarcation of the maternal as abject. She argues that the theory in itself cannot support the notion that there is transgressive possibility in embracing abject qualities or abject parody by demarcating such qualities in the first instance. She supports a larger social and political account of abjection in its place that contests the dehumanising effects of abjection. See Imogen Tyler, 'Against Abstraction', Feminist Theory (2009) vol. 10(1): pp. 77–98.
5Studies in the Maternal published a special issue in 2010 entitled 'M(O)ther Trouble: Motherhood, Psychoanalysis, Feminism.' Of particular note is Fanny Söderbäck's article which discusses Judith Butler's Gender Trouble (1990) in which Butler critiques Kristeva's emphasis on biological maternal functions. Söderbäck defends Kristeva on the basis that her return to the biological aspects of the maternal body does not preserve essential notions of motherhood but rather displaces, renews and transforms the maternal body. See Fanny Söderbäck, (2010) 'Motherhood: A Site of Repression or Liberation? Kristeva and Butler on the Maternal Body', Studies in the Maternal vol. 2(1): pp. 1–15.
6For a theoretical contemporary account of queer asynchronies of time that allow for a positive 'erotohistoriography', see Elizabeth Freeman, Time Binds: Queer Temporalities, Queer Histories (California: Duke University Press: 2010). In a similar vein, arguments in favour of reclaiming a queer history of the medieval period can be found in Carolyn Dinshaw, How Soon Is Now?: Medieval Texts, Amateur Readers, and the Queerness of Time (California: Duke University Press: 2012).
7For a more recent account of how feminism has embraced and developed the concept of the feminine other, see Radhika Gajjala and Yeon Ju Oh, Cyberfeminism 2.0. (New York: Peter Lang, 2012).
8Liz Herbert McAvoy, 'Monstrous Masculinities in Julian of Norwich's A Revelation of Love and The Book of Margery Kempe', in The Monstrous Middle Ages, ed. by Bettina Bildhauer and Robert Mills, (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2003), pp. 55–74, (p. 56).
9Elizabeth Robertson, 'Medieval Medical Views of Women', in Feminist Approaches to the Body in Medieval Literature, ed. by Linda Lomperis and Sarah Stanbury (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), pp. 142–168, (p. 146).
10Suzannah Biernoff, Sight and Embodiment in the Middle Ages (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002), p. 150.
11Caroline Walker Bynum, Jesus As Mother: Studies in The Spirituality of The High Middle Ages (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982).
12Michael Camille, 'The Image and the Self: Unwriting Late Medieval Bodies', in Framing Medieval Bodies, ed. by Sarah Kay and Miri Rubin (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994), pp. 62–99, (p. 77).
13For more on the uncanny effect of using animal skin to represent human skin in medieval books, see Sarah Kay, 'Legible skins: Animals and the Ethics of Medieval Reading', Postmedieval: A Journal of Medieval Cultural Studies (2011) 2:1, pp. 13–31.
14Mark Amsler, 'Affective Literacy: Gestures of Reading in the Later Middle Ages', Essays in Medieval Studies 18, no. 1 (2001): pp. 83–110, (p. 98).
15For more on Isabelle Adjani's performance in the film and its legendary status in film history, see Matty Stanfield, 'Does Our Subject Still Wear Pink Socks? or The Importance of Andrzej Zulawski's Possession', Art Opinions [https://mattystanfield.com/2015/07/06/does-our-subject-still-wear-pink-socks-or-the-importance-of-andrzej-zulawskis-possession/] article accessed 15th December 2017.
Visual artist Rachel Sharpe (b. Blackpool, 1988) graduated from the MFA at The Glasgow School of Art in 2017. Sharpe will be exhibiting her current project 'How Strange When an Illusion Dies' at Leith Theatre, as part of the Hidden Door Festival in Edinburgh, May 2018. Recent exhibitions of work include the group show 'Pokey Hat' for Glasgow International 2016, and 'Who Owns the Cone' at the Likky Ruth Project Space in Brooklyn NYC.
Amsler, Mark. 2001. 'Affective Literacy: Gestures of Reading in the Later Middle Ages'. Essays in Medieval Studies, 18(1): 83–110. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/ems.2001.0001
Bataille, Georges. 1985. Visions of Excess; Selected Writings 1927–1939. trans. and ed. by Allan Stoekl (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press).
Biernoff, Suzannah. 2002. Sight and Embodiment in the Middle Ages (Basingstoke: Palgrave). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230508354
Bynum, Caroline Walker. 1982. Jesus As Mother: Studies in The Spirituality of The High Middle Ages (Berkeley: University of California Press).
Camille, Michael. 1994. 'The Image and the Self: Unwriting Late Medieval Bodies'. In: Framing Medieval Bodies, Kay, Sarah and Rubin, Miri (eds.), 62–99. (Manchester: Manchester University Press).
Creed, Barbara. 1993. The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis (London: Routledge).
Dinshaw, Carolyn. 2012. How Soon Is Now?: Medieval Texts, Amateur Readers, and the Queerness of Time (California: Duke University Press). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822395911
Freeman, Elizabeth. 2010. Time Binds: Queer Temporalities, Queer Histories (California: Duke University Press). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822393184
Gajjala, Radhika and Ju Oh, Yeon. (eds.) 2012. Cyberfeminism 2.0. (New York: Peter Lang).
Kay, Sarah. 2011. 'Legible skins: Animals and the Ethics of Medieval Reading'. Postmedieval: A Journal of Medieval Cultural Studies, 2(1): 13–31. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/pmed.2010.48
Kristeva, Julia. 1982. 'Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection'. trans. by Leon S. Roudiez (New York: Columbia University Press).
McAvoy, Liz Herbert. 2003. 'Monstrous Masculinities in Julian of Norwich's A Revelation of Love and The Book of Margery Kempe'. In: The Monstrous Middle Ages, Bildhauer, Bettina and Mills, Robert (eds.), 55–74. (Cardiff: University of Wales Press).
Robertson, Elizabeth. 1993. 'Medieval Medical Views of Women'. In: Feminist Approaches to the Body in Medieval Literature, Lomperis, Linda and Stanbury, Sarah (eds.), 142–168. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press).
Söderbäck, Fanny. 2010. 'Motherhood: A Site of Repression or Liberation? Kristeva and Butler on the Maternal Body'. Studies in the Maternal, 2(1): 1–15. DOI: https://doi.org/10.16995/sim.95
Stanfield, Matty. 'Does Our Subject Still Wear Pink Socks? or The Importance of Andrzej Zulawski's Possession'. Art Opinions [https://mattystanfield.com/2015/07/06/does-our-subject-still-wear-pink-socks-or-the-importance-of-andrzej-zulawskis-possession/] article accessed 15th December 2017.
Tyler, Imogen. 2009. 'Against Abstraction'. Feminist Theory, 10(1): 77–98. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1464700108100393
Sharpe, R.F. and Sexon, S., 2018. Mother's Milk and Menstrual Blood in Puncture: The Monstrous Feminine in Contemporary Horror Films and Late Medieval Imagery. Studies in the Maternal, 10(1), p.10. DOI: http://doi.org/10.16995/sim.256
Sharpe RF, Sexon S. Mother's Milk and Menstrual Blood in Puncture: The Monstrous Feminine in Contemporary Horror Films and Late Medieval Imagery. Studies in the Maternal. 2018;10(1):10. DOI: http://doi.org/10.16995/sim.256
Sharpe, R. F., & Sexon, S. (2018). Mother's Milk and Menstrual Blood in Puncture: The Monstrous Feminine in Contemporary Horror Films and Late Medieval Imagery. Studies in the Maternal, 10(1), 10. DOI: http://doi.org/10.16995/sim.256
Sharpe RF and Sexon S, 'Mother's Milk and Menstrual Blood in puncture: The Monstrous Feminine in Contemporary Horror Films and Late Medieval Imagery' (2018) 10 Studies in the Maternal 10 DOI: http://doi.org/10.16995/sim.256
Sharpe, Rachel Frances, and Sophie Sexon. 2018. "Mother's Milk and Menstrual Blood in puncture: The Monstrous Feminine in Contemporary Horror Films and Late Medieval Imagery". Studies in the Maternal 10 (1): 10. DOI: http://doi.org/10.16995/sim.256
Sharpe, Rachel Frances, and Sophie Sexon. "Mother's Milk and Menstrual Blood in puncture: The Monstrous Feminine in Contemporary Horror Films and Late Medieval Imagery". Studies in the Maternal 10, no. 1 (2018): 10. DOI: http://doi.org/10.16995/sim.256
Sharpe, R. F.and S. Sexon. "Mother's Milk and Menstrual Blood in puncture: The Monstrous Feminine in Contemporary Horror Films and Late Medieval Imagery". Studies in the Maternal, vol. 10, no. 1, 2018, p. 10. DOI: http://doi.org/10.16995/sim.256


text:
Hurdles, Real and Imagined
By Frypie - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=100190592on...
On Saturday, in an apparent effort to prick the momentum generated by the January 6th Committee's recent public hearings, the New York Times published a story headlined "Despite Growing Evidence, a Prosecution of Trump Would Face Challenges."
The headline, of course, is substantially true. Any prosecution of a powerful, well-resourced person for a serious crime faces challenges, no matter the strength of the evidence arrayed against them, and those challenges grow geometrically when the person in question is a former president who sits at the top of a fanatical mass movement that's willing to pursue its goals without ethical or legal restraints and that elevates personal fealty to him over adherence to factual reality or a set of pre-agreed rules. Nevertheless, the story is misbegotten, and I think it's important to understand why.
The NYT lede frames an implicit argument that's carried through the piece:
As new questions swirled this past week about former President Donald J. Trump's potential criminal exposure for seeking to overturn the 2020 election, Mr. Trump issued a rambling 12-page statement.
It contained his usual mix of outlandish claims, hyperbole and outright falsehoods, but also something that Trump allies and legal experts said was notable and different: the beginnings of a legal defense.
On nearly every page, Mr. Trump gave explanations for why he was convinced that the 2020 election had been stolen from him and why he was well within his rights to challenge the results by any means available.
The argument, if I'm reading it right, is that Trump's feelings of justification for acting as he did in the aftermath of the 2020 election (his "explanations for why he was convinced that the 2020 election had been stolen from him and why he was well within his rights to challenge the results by any means available") constitutes the "beginnings of a legal defense." It doesn't, but the problems in the piece are worse than that.
As the story goes on, it becomes clear that the New York Times is not thinking of an affirmative legal defense of necessity or something along those lines—the sort of defense that's offered in the courtroom after the prosecution has proven its prima facie case. Instead, the paper is asserting that any conceivable offense the federal government might charge Trump with would include a particular knowledge element:
If the Justice Department were to bring a case against [Trump], prosecutors would face the challenge of showing that he knew — or should have known — that his position was based on assertions about widespread election fraud that were false or that his attempt to block the congressional certification of the outcome was illegal.
This is, not to put too fine a point on it, horseshit.
First of all, it's simply not possible to talk about the requirements of any conceivable criminal "case" like this. Criminal laws are highly specific and highly varied, so much so that any attempt to paint them with a broad brush quickly founders. The most scholars have been able to say about criminal laws on a general basis is that they set out a list of elements of an offense that the government is required to prove, and those elements generally include an actus reus, a criminal action, and a mens rea, a criminal mental state. Even this is oversimplified, as many jurisdictions define strict liability crimes that include no mental state element.
Second, NYT's assertion appears to be assembled by stitching together things that sound good with a partial understanding of the issues at play. For intstance, the knowledge formulation NYT uses ("knew — or should have known —") is commonplace in substantive laws relating to negligence or recklessness, but it doesn't appear in the laws relating to obstruction, sedition, and conspiracy, which tend to deal with actual knowledge, not duties of care and substantial cognizable risks. Similarly, the first limb of the NYT's knowledge element—Trump's knowledge "that his position was based on assertions about widespread election fraud that were false"—appears out of nowhere and doesn't pass the smell test. (The second limb is a closer question, and I'll come back to that.)
While the NYT paints with a broad brush, there are two federal crimes that are most clearly in the foreground of the piece—a so-called conspiracy to defraud the United States under 18 USC 371 and obstruction (or attempted obstruction) of a congressional proceeding under 18 USC 1512(c)(2). These two crimes are distinguished by the extraordinary fact that a federal judge, David Carter, has already decided former President Trump and John Eastman likely committed the former and and attempted the latter. (He reached this conclusion in working through Eastman's legal challenge to a subpoena for his emails from the January 6th Committee.) In order to illustrate some of the issues with NYT's thinking, it'll be helpful to focus on the obstruction charge, 1512(c)(2).
Early in its investigation of the violence on January 6th, DOJ zeroed in on 18 USC 1512(c)(2) as the most serious felony charge (short of seditious conspiracy) that it would apply broadly to the people who breached the Capitol building. As a result, that particular offense has now been charged scores of times in relation to the events of January 6th, its legal validity has been challenged repeatedly in motions to dismiss, it has been upheld at least ten times (and dismissed on two occasions by one maverick judge), and numerous defendants have pleaded guilty. And crucially, that offense has been charged against defendants who sincerely believed Donald Trump's lies about widespread election fraud. In none of the 1512(c)(2) cases to date, so far as I am aware, has it been held—or even asserted—that the government must prove the defendant knew Trump's election lies to be false in order to win a conviction. So why would prosecutors have to prove that for Trump, the teller of the lies? It simply would not make sense.
As applied to 1512(c)(2), the second limb of NYT's knowledge test—Trump's knowledge "that his attempt to block the congressional certification of the outcome was illegal"—has some more basis in the court decisions we've seen. The 1512(c) statute reads as follows:
Whoever corruptly—
(1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object's integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or
(2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so,
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
The required mental state for this statute is contained in a single word, "corruptly." And 1512 is far from the only obstruction statute to boil mens rea down to that one word. Congress did not supply an applicable definition of "corruptly," so courts have mulled and tweaked their own understandings of its meaning over the years, and settled on a bright line rule that makes for easy cases. As Judge Friedrich, one of the judges who approved 1512(c)(2) charges for Capitol insurrectionists, writes:
In considering the meaning of "corruptly" (or wrongfully), courts have drawn a clear distinction between lawful and unlawful conduct. In Arthur Andersen LLP v. United States, 544 U.S. 696 (2005), the Supreme Court explained, in the context of § 1512(b), that "corruptly" is "associated with wrongful, immoral, depraved, or evil." Id. at 705 (internal quotations omitted). It noted that persuading someone to withhold testimony or documents from the government is not always "wrongful"—for instance, when persuading someone to invoke his or her right against self-incrimination or the marital privilege, or when pursuing valid document retention policies. Id. at 704. And in North, Judge Silberman explained that a defendant "corruptly" obstructs or influences a congressional inquiry when he uses "independently criminal" means. 910 F.2d at 943 (Silberman, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part); see also Matthews, 505 F.3d at 706 (explaining that the word "wrongfully" guards against convicting someone who has a 24 "legal right"—such as the right to avoid self-incrimination—to obstruct or impede).12 By contrast, a defendant who withholds documents or testimony because of a valid privilege, see United States v. Farrell, 126 F.3d 484, 488 (3d Cir. 1997),13 lawfully lobbies Congress ahead of an official proceeding, or engages in First Amendment-protected protest activity does not act "corruptly" within the meaning of the statute. These real-world examples draw a line that is consistent with the definition of "wrongful": "[t]hat is contrary to law, statute, or established rule." Wrongful, def. 3(a), Oxford English Dictionary (2d ed. 1989). The ordinary meaning of "wrongful," along with the judicial opinions construing it, identify a core set of conduct against which § 1512(c)(2) may be constitutionally applied—"independently criminal" conduct, North, 910 F.2d at 943 (Silberman, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) that is "inherently malign," Arthur Andersen, 544 U.S. at 704, and committed with the intent to obstruct an official proceeding, see Friske, 640 F.3d at 1291–92. "Corruptly" (or wrongfully) also acts to shield those who engage in lawful, innocent conduct—even when done with the intent to obstruct, impede, or influence the official proceeding—from falling within the ambit of § 1512(c)(2). See Arthur Andersen, 544 U.S. at 705–06.
In other words, it's easy to say the January 6th insurrections acted corruptly, according to this bright line rule, because they chose unlawful means of interfering with Congress's work—assaulting police officers, breaking windows and entering, invading offices, stealing items from the Capitol, etc.
By the same logic, Trump and Eastman may also present a fairly easy case because—according to the evidence the January 6th Committee has put forward—they knew and discussed that their plan to strong-arm Vice President Pence into suspending the joint session and sending the electoral votes back to certain states would violate federal law. As Judge Carter wrote:
Dr. Eastman argues that the plan was legally justified as it "was grounded on a good faith interpretation of the Constitution." But "ignorance of the law is no excuse," and believing the Electoral Count Act was unconstitutional did not give President Trump license to violate it. Disagreeing with the law entitled President Trump to seek a remedy in court, not to disrupt a constitutionally-mandated process. And President Trump knew how to pursue election claims in court—after filing and losing more than sixty suits, this plan was a last-ditch attempt to secure the Presidency by any means.
The illegality of the plan was obvious. Our nation was founded on the peaceful transition of power, epitomized by George Washington laying down his sword to make way for democratic elections. Ignoring this history, President Trump vigorously campaigned for the Vice President to single-handedly determine the results of the 2020 election. As Vice President Pence stated, "no Vice President in American history has ever asserted such authority." Every American—and certainly the President of the United States—knows that in a democracy, leaders are elected, not installed.
The illegality of the plan, obvious even to Trump (especially after Eastman purportedly told him), would be one way of proving he acted corruptly. But it's important to note that's not the only way to prove such a thing. Back to Judge Friedrich:
The Court recognizes that other cases, such as those involving lawful means… will present closer questions. … As courts have noted, difficult questions arise when lawful means are used with a corrupt purpose and with the intent to obstruct, influence, or impede an official proceeding. See, e.g., United States v. Doss, 630 F.3d 1181, 1189 (9th Cir. 2011); North, 910 F.2d at 943 (Silberman, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). In Judge Silberman's view, the purpose inquiry should focus narrowly on whether the defendant "was attempting to secure some advantage for himself or for others than was improper or not in accordance with the legal rights and duties of himself or others." North, 910 F.2d at 944 (Silberman, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part); see also Aguilar, 515 U.S. at 616 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (the "longstanding and well-accepted meaning" of "corruptly" is "[a]n act done with an intent to give some advantage inconsistent with official duty and the rights of others") (internal quotation marks omitted). See also United States v. Kanchanalak, 37 F. Supp. 2d 1, 4 (D.D.C. 1999) (noting that it may be too vague to require only that a defendant "act[ed] with an improper purpose"). This case, which allegedly involves unlawful means engaged in with the intent to obstruct, does not raise these challenging questions.
Ultimately, the potential for these other types of cases is why the second limb of NYT's proposed legal test is as wrong as the first. It elevates one way of proving a defendant acted corruptly into the only way and confuses what's available to DOJ prosecutors with what's required of them.
More broadly, the notion that Trump's liability for the post-election scheme that culminated in January 6th depends on some fiddly little argument his lawyers might make about how sincerely be believed he deserved to remain in power betrays a crabbed and stilted view of the world. A typical corrupt official might try to steal, by subterfuge, a government contract for a relative. Former President Trump and his allies tried to steal, by deceit and intimidation and eventually by main force, the government of the United States of America. Any prosecution of the man will face numerous difficulties, but we should have no problem proving that's a crime.
Very well done.


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2023 Seniors Registration
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Season Round-Up
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The Dunbar Rovers Story
The Dunbar Way
Sponsoring Our Club
Dunbar Rovers Football Club
Dunbar Rovers has been a strong and proud member of the Eastern Suburbs Football Association since 1991, winning its top honours at every level, and representing the Association by winning several state-wide Football NSW competitions.
We are rightly proud of our on-field Senior record with ESFA: 55 Grand Final appearances, 35 Club Grand Final wins and 35 Club Minor Premierships. All achieved in style with Dunbar's trademark pink collar, our way of symbolising good sportsmanship and behaviour both on and off the field.
7-time winner of the ESFA Men's First Grade League Championship (2007,2008, 2009, 2011, 2014, 2016, 2019)
5-time winner of the ESFA Men's First Grade Grand Final (2008, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2016)
3-time Winner of the ESFA Men's Open Cup (2006, 2009, 2014)
2-time winner of the All Age Men's NSW Champions of Champions (2008, 2014)
2-time winner of the All Age Women's NSW Champions of Champions (2016, 2018)
12-time winner of the ESFA Women's Division 1 League Championship (2004, 2005, 2006, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019)
7-time winner of the ESFA Women's Division 1 Grand Final (2005, 2008, 2011, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2019)
7-time winner of the ESFA O35 Men's Championship (2010, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019)
1-time winner of the ESFA O45 Men's Championship (2011)
1999: Winner of the Sydney Metropolitan Cup (Men)
2015: Winner of the Open Women's State Cup
2017: Winner of the ESFA Women's Open Cup
2018: First ESFA Club to win Over35 Men's NSW Champion of Champions
NSW Champions of Champions
Dunbar Rovers has been represented in all but one NSW Champion of Champions tournament since 2002.
In addition, Dunbar has the honour of being the first ESFA Club to win the All-Age Men's Champion of Champions (2 titles), the first ESFA Club to win the All-Age Women's Champions of Champions (2 titles) and in 2018 the first ESFA Club to win the Men's Over35 Champion of Champions.
On October 24th, 2008 the Club defeated Budgewoi FC (Central Coast) in a very tight final, winning 1-0 thanks to a golden goal in extra-time from striker Peter Satos.
On October 19th, 2014 Dunbar Men's First Grade defeated Kenthurst (Gladesville Hornsby) 3-2 in the Final. Kenthurst took the lead in the 13 min. Dunbar via Anto Flood saw us draw level and then the same man again to get us in the lead, which was only short-lived. Mike Sealy got Dunbar the winner in the 79-minute.
On October 23rd, 2016, Dunbar Rovers Football Club Women's Championship team defeated Tarrawanna FC (Football South Coast) 2-1 in the final. Similar to the Men, the team became the first team from the Eastern Suburbs Football Association to win the title. A great game by Tarrawanna FC pushed our ladies to their limits by getting the early goal, however, we had another couple of gears left that saw us win in normal time 2-1 with goals to Belinda (Bina) Seers and the match-winner to Fran Brady. Check out the goals from 12.04 minutes in at http://www.footballnsw.com.au/index.php?id=381
On October 21st, 2018, Dunbar Rovers FC Women's Championship team defeated Albion Park FC (Football South Coast) 2-1 in the final. Once again — just as the Men did in 2014 — our Women's team became the first to win the title twice, from the Eastern Suburbs Football Association. In this game, it was Dunbar who set the pace leading 2-0 at halftime. With Darcy Read and Danielle Morris placing Dunbar in a match-winning position. Albion Park came out strong, they scored and it was up to the Dunbar ladies to keep the attack and defense at equal force. The final whistle blew, 2-1 to Dunbar!
On that same day in 2018, Dunbar Rovers FC Over35 Championship team defeated Como Jannali FC (Sutherland Shire) 2-0 in the final to become the first Over35 team from the Eastern Suburbs Football Association to win the title. Neither side was willing to give any opportunity away early resulting in a scoreless first half. Not until the 67th minute did Dunbar hit the scoreboard with a beautifully timed lob from Matty Pickover, well worth the wait! It was not until 3 minutes to go that we sealed the victory, once again scored by Matty.
History in the making for the Club, 2 NSW Champion of Champions titles in one day.
Eastern Suburbs Football Association
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SCENES FROM A SCANDAL
4) Lenocis' Legacy
When Ganim was indicted, prosecutors said the corruption investigation had begun way back in 1996. It was triggered, Bridgeporters generally believe, by City Hall's interference in the losing battle homeowners fought to stop the Lenocis' United Properties company from jamming the Super Stop & Shop into the middle of their North End neighborhood, pictured above.
In March 1995, two zoning board members skipped public hearings and were replaced for the crucial vote by Ganim-appointed alternates who favored the supermarket project. But the switch was not the only thing that aroused suspicion. The land on Madison Avenue was available because it had been occupied by the defunct Dewhirst dairy and its historic farmhouse. In 1993, when the zoning fight already had begun, the 250-year-old farmhouse burned in a probable arson after Brilvitch had tried to stop its demolition. Homeowners also knew that the Lenocis were big contributors to the mayor's political campaigns as was their attorney, Charles Willinger.
The homeowners' leader was Thomas White, a former city councilman who has been mentioned as a possible Republican candidate for mayor. "I think the important thing is Dewhirst set a pattern," White said. "It demonstrated that certain developers, depending on their morals and scruples, could work with Joe Ganim, and the key element was contributions to his political ambitions."
About the same time the Lenocis won the Dewhirst zone change, United Properties also was chosen to develop prime property on Lafayette Boulevard. There, in place of a Days Inn, they put up the small strip mall now occupied by a Dunkin' Donuts and the Bob's Furniture store, shown here. A competitor denied the site now scoffs at the stores as a travesty.
He is Jack McGregor, who ought to have carried some clout in the city. A Yale-educated lawyer, McGregor founded the Pittsburgh Penguins National Hockey League franchise, later became the chief executive at what was then the Bridgeport Hydraulic water utility and served as co-chairman of John Rowland's transition committee. In 1995, McGregor and his wife started an investment company devoted exclusively to Bridgeport.
"We spent months going to other urban turnaround examples and developed a sense that many, if not most, urban renaissances had a common thread of public sports facilities, whether it was Lansing, Trenton, Norfolk or Dayton. The first project we focused on was a community ice skating facility downtown," McGregor said.
The plan was to build twin rinks that would draw recreational skaters from surrounding towns and also become a training facility. Eventually he settled on the Days Inn location as ideal. "We presented we think some attractive proposals to the city," he said. "We were told the mayor had another use in mind and were told to look elsewhere. That was our first choice. The mayor said hands off."
McGregor said he was merely disappointed, but not outraged, when he learned of the Lenoci strip mall plan a few years later. By then he was in the midst of bringing the Bluefish baseball team to the new ballpark at Harbor Yard. One of the original owners, he's since sold part of his interest. The outrage came after Ganim cut him out of the running to build a companion sports arena.
The developers chosen over McGregor had hired Willinger's firm and the cost of the arena project, originally estimated at $35 million, rose to nearly $58 million. McGregor said his group had offered to assume the risk of cost overruns and to build an office tower elsewhere in the city.
"They went to a politically favored attorney who magically got them selected by the mayor over us. Whereupon we vowed never to do another project in Bridgeport until this mayor is out of office," McGregor said.
He said the scandal may have set development in Bridgeport back a decade or more, then lowered his guess to five to eight years. The city, located on a deep water harbor, served by the Metro North commuter line, and at the intersection of major highways in wealthy Fairfield County, should be tremendously attractive. Yet, he said, "the most sustained economic growth in the nation's history happened during Ganim's reign, and not one office building went up in Bridgeport."
Joe Ganim
Dunkin' Brands