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Authority Of Images / Images Of Authority: Shaping Political And Cultural Identities In The Pre-Modern World, Karen Fresco 2016 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Authority Of Images / Images Of Authority: Shaping Political And Cultural Identities In The Pre-Modern World, Karen Fresco

Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

Focusing on language's political power, these essays discuss how representation, through language norms, plays and court spectacles, manipulations and adaptations of texts and images, both constitutes and reflects a cultural milieu. The volume brings together various disciplinary approaches, offering a complex appreciation of these questions. While a core of the essays focuses on France, the contributions engage a broad range of geographical contexts, from Byzantium to eastern Germany and England from the early centuries of the Common Era to the seventeenth century, revealing the prevalence and persistence of the key interconnected issues of images and authority. Contributors: Carla Bozzolo; Philippe …


Hoc Est Corpus Meum: The Eucharist In Twelfth-Century Literature, Lindsey Zachary Panxhi 2016 University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

Hoc Est Corpus Meum: The Eucharist In Twelfth-Century Literature, Lindsey Zachary Panxhi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In “Hoc Est Corpus Meum: The Eucharist in Twelfth-Century Literature,” I analyze the appearance of the Eucharist as a sacred motif in secular lais, romances, and chronicles. The Eucharist became one of the most controversial intellectual topics of the High Middle Ages. While medieval historians and religious scholars have long recognized that the twelfth century was a critical period in which many eucharistic doctrines were debated and affirmed, literary scholars have given very little attention to the concurrent emergence of eucharistic themes in twelfth-century literature. This is unfortunate, since the Eucharist emerges as an intriguing motif, appearing in fantastic encounters …


Charles University: A History Of Revolution, Matous Komers 2016 Riverdale High School

Charles University: A History Of Revolution, Matous Komers

Young Historians Conference

Although the students of Prague’s Charles University are mostly remembered for starting the Velvet Revolution in the 20th Century, the university’s history of revolution started nearly seven hundred years earlier with a young priest named Jan Hus. Hus started a movement of religious reform called Hussitism, which laid the groundwork for the Protestant Reformation. “Charles University: A History of Revolution” explores the impact and influence that Charles University had on the development and spread of the Hussite Reformation and Hus’ massive theological shift.


Front Matter, Medieval Feminist Forum, V.51 No.2 2016, 2016 Western Michigan University

Front Matter, Medieval Feminist Forum, V.51 No.2 2016

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.


Beyond Women And Power: Looking Backward And Moving Forward, Kathy M. Krause 2016 Western Michigan University

Beyond Women And Power: Looking Backward And Moving Forward, Kathy M. Krause

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.


Powerful Women And Misogynistic Subplots: Some Comments On The Necessity Of Checking The Primary Sources, Tracy Adams 2016 Western Michigan University

Powerful Women And Misogynistic Subplots: Some Comments On The Necessity Of Checking The Primary Sources, Tracy Adams

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

Many women formerly regarded as harridans, vixens, or worse by historians throughout the ages have been rehabilitated in recent years. It is therefore discouraging to find old narratives of female promiscuity, intriguing, incompetence, frivolity, cupidity, obesity) continuing to circulate, in the form of what we might think of as female "subplots" in larger histories. When the woman in question is not the star of the study she is often subject to outdated stereotypes gleaned from old studies. This essay, focusing on a number of very recent subplots that recycle verifiably incorrect assumptions about Isabeau of Bavaria (1371-1435), queen of mad …


Mistrusting The Historiography Of Royal Mothers: Louis Of Savoy And Catherine De Medici, Kathleen Wellman 2016 Western Michigan University

Mistrusting The Historiography Of Royal Mothers: Louis Of Savoy And Catherine De Medici, Kathleen Wellman

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

Louise of Savoy, mother of Francis I, and Catherine de Medici, mother of the last three reigning Valois kings—Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III—were two sixteenth-century women whose maternity gave them access to power and provided the foundation for their claims to exercise it legitimately. While their contemporaries either accepted or contested those claims, some nineteenth-century critics vehemently rejected female rule, particularly by mothers. Modern scholars have left those nineteenth-century repudiations largely unquestioned.


What Do We Mean By "Women And Power"?, Marie A. Kelleher 2016 Western Michigan University

What Do We Mean By "Women And Power"?, Marie A. Kelleher

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

This essay considers the question of how we define “power” in order to best include women and gender. Queenship/lordship studies have been at the forefront of women-and-power discussions, and have advanced that discussion by moving away from the “exceptional woman” biographies to focus on the patterns of power that these women embodied. But if we extend our definition of power beyond the realm of public authority to a more general category of acts that can shape the destinies of others, we are confronted with a much broader field of action that might be considered “women’s power” — a field that …


Archives From Houses Of Cistercian Nuns And Their Evidence For Powerful Thirteenth-Century Secular Women, Constance H. Berman 2016 Western Michigan University

Archives From Houses Of Cistercian Nuns And Their Evidence For Powerful Thirteenth-Century Secular Women, Constance H. Berman

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

This essay examines documents from abbeys of Cistercian nuns in northern France. The documents reveal the presence of numerous women of power and authority as founders and patrons of those women's houses. Where some women were acting as widows or regents, others had access to sufficient funds for acts of patronage and foundation because they were heiresses. Here those named Matilda from the ecclesiastical province of Sens in northern France are underlined, showing the diversity of female wealth and power.


Back Matter, Medieval Feminist Forum, V.51 No.2 2016, 2016 Western Michigan University

Back Matter, Medieval Feminist Forum, V.51 No.2 2016

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.


Queenship Studies Comes Of Age, Lois L. Huneycutt 2016 Western Michigan University

Queenship Studies Comes Of Age, Lois L. Huneycutt

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.


Mistresses And Merveilleuses: The Historiographical Record On Female Political Players Of The Seventeenth And Eighteenth Centuries, Christine Adams 2016 Western Michigan University

Mistresses And Merveilleuses: The Historiographical Record On Female Political Players Of The Seventeenth And Eighteenth Centuries, Christine Adams

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

Modern historians have found it difficult to disrupt the narrative inherited from past scholars, who argued that even prominent women lacked any genuine political role in the early modern world. However, in many ways, the personal influence that women exercised in court and salon society was highly political, as was that of men. An examination of the power of highly visible women, for example, famous mistresses such as Madame de Montespan and Madame Tallien, suggests that historians should broaden their understanding of the “political” and more carefully interrogate the activities of female historical figures, rejecting the moralistic accounts that have …


Recalculating The Equation: Powerful Woman = Extraordinary, Amy Livingstone 2016 Western Michigan University

Recalculating The Equation: Powerful Woman = Extraordinary, Amy Livingstone

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.


Literary Heiresses And Historical Countesses In Thirteenth-Century France: Some Methodological Notes, Kathy M. Krause 2016 Western Michigan University

Literary Heiresses And Historical Countesses In Thirteenth-Century France: Some Methodological Notes, Kathy M. Krause

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.


Woman And Power: Thoughts Arising Out Of The Roundtable "Debating Women And Power In The Middle Ages," International Medieval Congress, Leeds, 2014, Penelope Nash 2016 Western Michigan University

Woman And Power: Thoughts Arising Out Of The Roundtable "Debating Women And Power In The Middle Ages," International Medieval Congress, Leeds, 2014, Penelope Nash

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

Questions are asked about how we study medieval women in positions of power, with particular reference to elite Italian and German women in the earlier Middle Ages. The essay calls for scholars to search for nuances in former understandings of women’s opportunities to exercise power while re-examining locality, time period, life cycles, and female and male power. The essay includes an appeal to scholars to become better acquainted with the work of their peers who write in other languages.


Contemplating Royal Women's Access To Power And The Transition Between The Middle Ages And The "Monstrous Regiment" Of The Early Modern Era, Elena Woodacre 2016 Western Michigan University

Contemplating Royal Women's Access To Power And The Transition Between The Middle Ages And The "Monstrous Regiment" Of The Early Modern Era, Elena Woodacre

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

This paper considers the factors which enabled women to access power via developing mechanisms for royal succession in medieval Europe and how this access was mediated through partnership with co-rulers, including consorts, sons and other co-opted family members and councilors. Finally the paper considers the relationship between the female rulers of the Middle Ages and the famous "Monstrous Regiment" in Early Modern Europe.


Where Do We Go From Here? Some Thoughts On Power And Gender In The Middle Ages, Theresa Earenfight 2016 Western Michigan University

Where Do We Go From Here? Some Thoughts On Power And Gender In The Middle Ages, Theresa Earenfight

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

Current research on queens exposes the biased weaknesses in much of the scholarly work on monarchy and reveals that queens were hardly exceptional. By examining monarchy as a family affair, rather than that of a man alone on the throne, it is clear that queens and noblewomen were fundamental to the operations of monarchy. Taking this meta-discourse of monarchy into account reveals a complex network of affiliations that were obscured by generations of scholars who focused only the deeds of men and thus regarded a woman in power as exceptional.


In Search Of Askia Mohammed, Joe Wilson 2016 James Madison University

In Search Of Askia Mohammed, Joe Wilson

Showcase of Graduate Student Scholarship and Creative Activities

This is my MA thesis. I contextualized the Songhay oral history concerning king Askia Mohammed. I placed the folk lore in cultural and historical context to illustrate that the Epic of Askia Mohammed is a complex work of mythology that communicates difficult and complicated information in easily understandable "picture stories." These stories are not at all factual and often distort the historical narrative, but they do so in order that the audience is entertained, cultural norms are reinforced, and the historical account is preserved in a culturally approved framework.


Feral And Isolated Children From Herodotus To Akbar To Hesse: Heroes, Thinkers, And Friends Of Wolves, Karl Steel 2016 CUNY Brooklyn College

Feral And Isolated Children From Herodotus To Akbar To Hesse: Heroes, Thinkers, And Friends Of Wolves, Karl Steel

Publications and Research

"In 1304, a small child of Hesse was taken by wolves, and lived with them for a while, eating well, learning to run on all fours, perhaps joining them in their raids on sheep and humans, until he was taken by hunters and forced to live, unhappily, in human society, compelled to learn to walk upright, and exhibited as a spectacle. This account, almost certainly legendary, belongs to a small set of similar stories of feral children from roughly the same time, which, unlike so many modern accounts of wild children, are not about isolation, deprivation, or a catastrophic separation …


Session C-1: Crusades: The Bridging Of The East And West And The End Of The Middle Ages, George Haldaman 2016 Mascoutah High School

Session C-1: Crusades: The Bridging Of The East And West And The End Of The Middle Ages, George Haldaman

Professional Learning Day

This seminar will examine how to make the Crusades an easy concept for high school students to understand. By examining the cultural exchange that occurred between the Christians and Muslims, we will examine the legacy of the Crusades by discussing how they brought an end to the Middle Ages by sharing ideas, diseases, and knowledge. The seminar will also present lesson plans you can use to teach this turning point in history.


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