The Announcement: Annunciations and Beyond. An Introduction

We spend our lives waiting for announcements. Time passes monotonously by, then suddenly new information is unveiled, transmitted, often operating as a speech act, as a self-activating enunciation. Announcements are sometimes anticipated, often desired, yet almost by definition unpredictable. The quintessentially post-modern combination of efficiency and ennui has perhaps made us particularly impatient and anxious, constantly checking whether an announcement – a new tax, an invitation to a conference, an amorous email or an immaculate conception – is just around the corner and could change our lives forever. Each announcement is an event in time: The Annunciation – the announcement to Mary narrated in the Gospel of Saint Luke (Luke 1:26–38) – in particular implies the hardly conceivable simultaneity of the enunciation of the epochal event, its acceptance, and its coming into effect; it posits a curious fragment of time that is no longer the before, but not yet the after; and it creates a complex entanglement between a personal story and general history, with their different temporalities, here suddenly converging. Moreover, there is a particularly significant tension between the Annunciation, as the model and matrix of all announcements, and the long series of reenactments and variations following it.1