Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Possession, Production, And Power: Reading Objects In The Material Field, Anne E. Lester

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

This response piece explores the revival of interest in materiality and the relationship between medieval material culture and gender. Offering a rich and extensive overview of the study of materiality and gender, including a new definition of the “material field” drawing on Bourdieu, the piece specifically discusses how objects obtain their value and meaning within medieval texts, including Arthurian romance literature. The response argues that material objects give a woman power and control, outlining how this is evident through objects within texts and in material production, as evidenced in the section’s articles. The response piece poses – and offers some …

Front Matter, Medieval Feminist Forum, V.56, No.1, Summer 2020

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Introduction: New Approaches To Medieval Romance, Materiality, And Gender, Amy Burge, Morgan Boharski, Jane Bonsall, Lydia Hayes, Danielle Howarth, Vanessa Wright

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Like Looking In A Mirror: A Material Reading Of The Sisters In Galeran De Bretagne, Morgan Boharski

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

This article explores the story of Fresne from Renaut’s early thirteenth-century romance of Galeran de Bretagne and, moreover, the often overlooked story of her twin sister Flourie. In Marie de France’s version of the tale, the lai of Le Fraisne, the focus is on the character of Fresne, rather than her twin sister who is rarely mentioned in favour of encouraging the ultimate success of Fresne in winning the handsome knight at the end of the tale. However, inextricably linked to the success of Fresne is the failure of Flourie, and in Renaut’s romance, the reader is allowed a …

Fabricated Muslim Identity, Female Agency, And Cultural Complicity: The Imperial Project Of Emaré, Amy Burge, Lydia Kertz

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

Extant in only one mid-fifteenth-century manuscript, the Middle English romance Emaré has nevertheless captivated modern scholars and readers. The majority of studies have focused on the text’s material culture, centred on the description of a luxurious cloth that takes up 10% of the poem. A recent global turn in medieval studies has consistently highlighted the role of medieval Europe in defining and supporting imperial projects, simultaneously challenging the Eurocentrism of medieval studies and the supposed neutrality of medieval European culture. This article brings Emaré into conversation with material culture and postcolonial critique to investigate the imperial politics of the text. …

Textiles, Gender, And Materiality: A Response, Bettina Bildhauer

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

This response outlines the predominant current conceptions of gendered materiality in contemporary theory (such as Karen Barad’s development of Judith Butler’s thought) and in medieval studies (such as work by Caroline Walker Bynum). It identifies and expands upon four themes from the two articles in the section that are pertinent to the descriptions of textiles and other material objects in a wider range of medieval texts and current medievalist scholarship: 1) the idea that textiles and other material things can have biographies; 2) the idea that textiles are today (but not necessarily in medieval writing) perceived as connective networks; 3) …

Making It Through The Wilderness: Trees As Markers Of Gendered Identities In Sir Orfeo, Danielle Howarth

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

Wood was an essential material in the Middle Ages, but trees – and human relationships with them – are too often ignored. Using trees as a lens through which to view medieval romance can provide us with a new perspective on the genre, on medieval gender norms, and on human relationships with the material non-human. This article focusses on the trees in the Middle English Sir Orfeo in order to interrogate how Orfeo’s identity is linked to trees and wooden objects. Although Orfeo’s harp is the most obvious wooden marker of his identity, the ympe-tree in Orfeo and Herodis’s orchard, …

Objectifying Love: Ladies And Their Tokens, Saints And Their Relics In Chrétien De Troyes, Lydia Hayes

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

Relics are powerful signifiers of the relationship between humanity and the divine because they allow humans to physically touch a part of a saint’s body or an extension of the saint’s body. This type of symbolism may also be found in the relationship between ladies and knights in Chrétien de Troyes’ Arthurian romances, when a part of the lady’s body (her hair, for example) or an object that once belonged to the lady is touched by the knight. The objects that represent these ladies provide their knights with some form of power at crucial stages in the romances, usually encouraging …

Connecting Our Pedagogical Questions And Goals: An Exercise For Writing Teacher Development, Jessica Rivera-Mueller

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

In this article, the author argues writing teachers can more fully inquire into their questions about teaching writing by paying closer attention to the ways their goals for teacher development shape their engagement in pedagogical inquiry. To explain these connections and illustrate these possibilities, the author shares findings from a narrative-inquiry study that examined the development of pedagogical inquiry in the lives of four teachers of writing. Using the participating teachers’ shared goals for teacher development, the author demonstrates how writing teachers can reflect upon the development of pedagogical inquiry, stretch themselves to practice other aspects of pedagogical inquiry, and …

Preservice English Teachers’ Evolving Conceptions Of 21st-Century Writing, Amber Jensen

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This study used stimulated-recall interviews throughout four secondary English preservice teachers’ (PSTs) semester-long student teaching internships to examine how critical teaching moments shaped their evolving conceptions of 21st-century writing. The article first describes the participants’ collective definitions of features and experiences of 21st-century writing in the ELA classroom, focusing specifically on how they understood digital and multimodal composition. It then examines two case studies that demonstrate how PSTs’ teaching experiences destabilized, challenged, and contradicted their emerging definitions. Findings suggest that English educators may engage PSTs in conceptualizing nuanced and flexible 21st-century writing pedagogies as they construct field experiences as reflective …

Poetic Style And Innovation In Old English, Old Norse, And Old Saxon, Megan E. Hartman

Richard Rawlinson Center Series

This book traces the development of hypermetric verse in Old English and compares it to the cognate traditions of Old Norse and Old Saxon. The study illustrates the inherent flexibility of the hypermetric line and shows how poets were able to manipulate this flexibility in different contexts for different practical and rhetorical purposes. This analysis shows what degree of control the poets had over the traditional alliterative line, what effects they were able to produce with various stylistic choices, and how attention to poetic style aids literary analysis.

Healing The Mind And Soul With Art And Music, Jennifer K. Fortuna

The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy

Gracie Fisher, an artist and composer based in Santa Barbara, California, provided the cover art for the Fall 2020 edition of The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy (OJOT). “The Fruit of Spirit” is a 16” x 20” oil painting on canvas. When a rare neurologic condition left Gracie paralyzed from the neck down, art and music helped to heal her mind and soul. Upon returning home from the hospital, Gracie’s wish was to create an inclusive environment where children of all abilities could engage in art and music. She founded the Grace Fisher Foundation so others could experience the healing …

Chaucer's Polyphony: The Modern In Medieval Poetry, Jonathan Fruoco

Research in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

Geoffrey Chaucer has long been considered by the critics as the father of English poetry. However, this notion not only tends to forget a huge part of the history of Anglo-Saxon literature but also to ignore the specificities of Chaucer’s style. Indeed, Chaucer’s decision to write in Middle English, in a time when the hegemony of Latin and Old French was undisputed (especially at the court of Edward III and Richard II), was consistent with an intellectual movement that was trying to give back to European vernaculars the prestige necessary to a genuine cultural production, which eventually led to the …

Medieval Futurity: Essays For The Future Of A Queer Medieval Studies, Will Rogers, Christopher Michael Roman

New Queer Medievalisms

This collection of essays asks contributors to take the capaciousness of the word "queer" to heart in order to think about what medieval queers would have looked like and how they may have existed on the margins and borders of dominant, normative sexuality and desire. The contributors work with recent trends in queer medieval studies, blending together modern concepts of sexuality and desire with the queer configurations of eroticism, desire, and materiality as they might have existed for medieval audiences.

The Wisdom Of Exeter: Anglo-Saxon Studies In Honor Of Patrick W. Conner, Edward J. Christie

Richard Rawlinson Center Series

This interdisciplinary volume collects original essays in literary criticism and literary theory, philology, codicology, metrics, and art history. Composed by prominent scholars in Anglo-Saxon studies, these essays honor the depth and breadth of Patrick W. Conner’s influence in our discipline. As a scholar, teacher, editor, administrator and innovator, Pat has contributed to Anglo-Saxon studies for four decades. It is hard to say which of his legacies is most profound.

Gower´S Queer Poetics In The Mirour De L'Omme, María Bullón-Fernández

Accessus

Gower's Queer Poetics in the Mirour de l'Omme

In the Mirour de l’Omme John Gower describes the allegorical Sins as both deceitful and “hermafrodrite” and later confesses to having engaged in queer practices in his earlier courtly poetry. Gower’s confession and his association of the Sins with intersexuality, I will argue, do not entail ultimately a rejection of queer poetics. In his Life of the Virgin Mary, the final part of the Mirour, Gower deploys a different kind of queer poetics, one that acknowledges the indeterminacies of language but still seeks to stabilize meaning, while intertwining male and female.

The Community Of The Realm: Gower's Account Of The Commons In Book V Of The Vox Clamantis, Robert J. Meindl

Accessus

Gower's stated intention at the beginning of Book III of the Vox Clamantis to survey the three degrees of the world, i.e. the clerics, knights, and farmers, is not forthcoming in exactly the manner he specifies. Instead, he delivers a lengthy critique of the clergy in Books III and IV and then an account of the secular world apart from the nobility in Book V. This book deals with the rural and urban components of late fourteenth-century English society, that is, the gentry and the bound and free agricultural workers on the one hand and the merchants, artisans, and plebs …

Foreword, Georgiana Donavin, Eve Salisbury

Accessus

Foreword for Accessus volume 6, issue 1.

The World Chronicle Of Guillaume De Nangis: A Manuscript's Journey From Saint-Denis To St. Pancras, Daniel Williman, Karen Ann Corsano

Research in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

The heart of this book is the biography of a manuscript codex, British Library Royal MS 13 E IV: the Latin Chronicle (Creation to 1300) of Guillaume de Nangis, copied in the abbey library of St-Denis-en-France. This volume was used as evidence in the legal and political battles of the French royal family until it came into the treasure of Jean, duc de Berry. In 1416 it vanished from Paris and France. Modern British scholarship has placed it in the library of King Henry VIII, whose autograph notes appear in its margins. The authors show how it traveled from one …

The Color Line In Communism: The East German Ministry Of Culture’S Portrayal Of Paul Robeson’S State Visit, Colin J. Rensch

Masters Theses

During the 1950s and 1960s, the Cold War, the American Civil Rights movement, and anticolonialism combined to create a complex political, social, and economic landscape and a division of the globe into the so-called first, second, and third worlds. It is within this context that African American performer and activist Paul Robeson traveled to the GDR for an official visit in October 1960.

This visit was highly significant in light of the oppression Robeson had experienced at the hands of the US State Department. In response to Robeson’s communist sympathy, the State Department had revoked Robeson’s passport in 1950, and …

Hysteria, Perversion, And Paranoia In The Canterbury Tales: "Wild" Analysis And The Symptomatic Storyteller, Becky Renee Mclaughlin

Research in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

Beginning with the spectacle of hysteria, moving through the perversions of fetishism, masochism, and sadism, and ending with paranoia and psychosis, this book explores the ways that conflicts with the Oedipal law erupt on the body and in language in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, for Chaucer’s tales are rife with issues of mastery and control that emerge as conflicts not only between authority and experience but also between power and knowledge, word and flesh, rule books and reason, man and woman, same and other—conflicts that erupt in a macabre sprawl of broken bones, dismembered bodies, cut throats, and decapitations. Like …

Integrating Art Into Life In Pursuit Of Occupational Balance, Jennifer K. Fortuna

The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy

Dr. Sharon Gutman, PhD, OTR, FAOTA, an occupational therapy professor and artist based in New York, provided the cover art for the Summer 2020 edition of The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy (OJOT). “Goldfish” is a 10” x 13” watercolor painting. Dr. Gutman has nearly 30 years of experience in clinical practice, higher education, research, and service to the profession. Dr. Gutman pursued a career in occupational therapy because it was a field where she could use her creativity. This decision led to an extraordinary career and a life of service to others. When the demands of a busy lifestyle …

New Directions In Early Modern English Drama: Edges, Spaces, Intersections, Aidan Norrie, Mark Houlahan

Late Tudor and Stuart Drama

New Directions in Early Modern English Drama examines some of the people, places, and plays at the edge of early modern English drama. Engaging with topics such as child actors, alterity, sexuality, foreignness, and locality, this volume demonstrates that the people and concepts long seen as on the edge of early modern English drama made vital contributions both within the fictive worlds of early modern plays, and without, in the real worlds of playmakers, theatres, and audiences.

What Covid-19 Is Teaching Me About Writing, Rebekah J. Buchanan

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This is a narrative piece for the special edition, Writing Teacher Education in Extraordinary Times. It addresses my work with English Education candidates, student teachers, and first-year writing students.

When Everything Changes Over Night: What We Learned From Teaching The Writing Practicum In The Era Of Covid-19, Christina Saidy, Thomas Sura

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

In this article, two university-level writing teacher educators describe their experiences in the Spring 2020 as they abruptly moved their spring practica and first-year writing courses to emergency remote teaching online. The authors share takeaways and guiding principles that emerged from the shift to emergency remote teaching that can be applied in similar contexts and beyond.

Body Of Work, Ben Gunsberg

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This essay offers a college English teacher's account of transitioning from face-to-face to web-based instruction during the Coronavirus pandemic of 2020.

Failure, Flexibility, And (Self-)Forgiveness: Authentic Modeling Through Distance Instruction, Brandie L. Bohney

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

After adjusting her writing methods course for distance learning due to coronavirus restrictions, an experienced teacher but early-career teacher educator gets a difficult and important reminder about what failure in the classroom feels like. Using this failure as an opportunity, she chooses an honest and vulnerable approach to readjusting the course and finds that the strategy serves both her and her students well.

Tell Your Story… Share Hope, Nicole Sieben

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This manuscript emphasizes the practice of storytelling in writing teacher education, particularly how it applies to encouraging graduate methods students and undergraduate college students to tell their stories amidst a pandemic that upended their semesters and for many, their lives. In this piece, a writing instructor examines the effectiveness of inviting students to provide feedback on their level of comfort with the change of instructional mode from face-to-face to remote instruction and with their level of concern/comfort in the current life circumstances. By way of example, the piece shares a specific poetry writing assignment that engaged students in storying their …

Back Matter, Medieval Feminist Forum, V.56, No.1, Summer 2020

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Prescribed Freedom, Proscribed Freedom: Compositional And Improvisational Balances In Jazz, Andrew W. Saliba

Masters Theses

Jazz is a recent and flexible art form, rooted in the twin musical strains of occidental canon and folkloric African-American music. From its genesis, jazz musicians have had the difficult task of reconciling these seemingly opposite musical parents while simultaneously building a new musical canon that respects and upholds its past, even as it celebrates new individual voices. Like any multifaceted challenge this balancing of elements has not always gone smoothly, and attempts to codify the delineation and categorization of jazz remain controversial even now. There is additional challenge in defining the nature of “free” improvised music. While free music …