Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

Discipline
Keyword
Publication Year

Articles 91 - 120 of 369

Full-Text Articles in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

The Mélusine Romance In Medieval Europe: Translation, Circulation, And Material Contexts, Angela Weisl May 2022

The Mélusine Romance In Medieval Europe: Translation, Circulation, And Material Contexts, Angela Weisl

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.


Mothers, Space, And Power In Athelston, Kirsty Bolton May 2022

Mothers, Space, And Power In Athelston, Kirsty Bolton

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

The late fourteenth-century Middle English romance Athelston explores the extent and propriety of monarchic power. Integral to this exploration are the characters of two women in the text whose enactments of motherhood reveal the very human failings of the divinely elected king and contribute to the romance’s advocation of law and the church to temper monarchic power. This article focuses on the use of space in relation to power, authority, gender, and motherhood, arguing that the writer of Athelston uses the disruption of gendered spaces, particularly in relation to pregnant women, to comment on systems of power and authority in …


A Mind Of Her Own: Women's Interiority In The Middle English And Older Scots Pastourelles, Anne L. Klinck May 2022

A Mind Of Her Own: Women's Interiority In The Middle English And Older Scots Pastourelles, Anne L. Klinck

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

The pastourelle achieved what might be called its classic form in Middle French poetry of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries: a mini-narrative in which the narrator, a knight or clerk, tells how he tried to have his will with a lower-class girl he happened upon while riding in the country. He greets her, sweet-talks her, and propositions her; she protests vigorously. Sometimes the debate ends here. Otherwise, her accoster overcomes her resistance by guile or force, and sexually assails her. The tone is light-hearted and cynical, the action crude. To modern readers, this narrative may be mildly amusing, rather tedious, …


Alchemy, The Liber Aureus, And The Erotics Of Knowledge, Kersti Francis May 2022

Alchemy, The Liber Aureus, And The Erotics Of Knowledge, Kersti Francis

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

Medieval alchemy was an overwhelmingly masculine practice, and its instruction books reflect the exclusivity of its practitioners. This article examines the use of secrecy and masculine discourse in a sixteenth-century Latin alchemical handbook, the Liber aureus, to demonstrate that there exists an erotically charged tension between authors and their readers. Alchemical instruction books like the Liber aureus draw upon this tension in the service of a particular kind of gatekeeping that creates hierarchies of both knowledge and alchemical practitioners. By investigating secrecy and its provocative effects both within and beyond this manuscript, I argue that alchemical instruction books’ secretive …


Superior Women: Medieval Female Authority In Poitiers’ Abbey Of Sainte-Croix, Alexandra Verini May 2022

Superior Women: Medieval Female Authority In Poitiers’ Abbey Of Sainte-Croix, Alexandra Verini

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.


Nuns’ Priests’ Tales: Men And Salvation In Medieval Women’S Monastic Life, Holle Canatella May 2022

Nuns’ Priests’ Tales: Men And Salvation In Medieval Women’S Monastic Life, Holle Canatella

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.


Margery Kempe’S Spiritual Medicine: Suffering, Transformation And The Life-Course, Lucy Barnhouse May 2022

Margery Kempe’S Spiritual Medicine: Suffering, Transformation And The Life-Course, Lucy Barnhouse

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.


The Cunning Linguist Of Agbabi’S “The Kiss”, Elan J. Pavlinich May 2022

The Cunning Linguist Of Agbabi’S “The Kiss”, Elan J. Pavlinich

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

In the Old French fabliaux tradition, sex acts and generic conventions intersect, revealing strategies of power. For example, Chaucer’s The Miller’s Tale, a Middle English text that is informed by fabliaux conventions, follows the sexual desires and exchanges of power between men, in the context of a frame narrative that privileges competition between the men of The Canterbury Tales, which is located within English literary canons dominated by men. In “The Kiss,” Patience Agbabi’s modern retelling of The Miller’s Tale, the central woman of the narrative assumes authorial control, and she privileges sex acts that empower women’s …


Calkas’S Daughter: Paternal Authority And Feminine Virtue In Troilus And Criseyde, Jennifer Alberghini May 2022

Calkas’S Daughter: Paternal Authority And Feminine Virtue In Troilus And Criseyde, Jennifer Alberghini

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

The heroine of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde has been of considerable interest to medieval feminist scholars as a woman who is depicted as both virtuous and an adulteress. Yet critical discussions do not often view Criseyde’s virtue in light of her role as daughter. This article explores that role, focusing on how her father Calkas is described by the characters as having authority over his daughter’s body in the marriage market. This will later enable them to use him as an excuse for Criseyde’s failure to return to Troy and thus preserve her status as virtuous. However, the characters …


Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal Of Gender And Sexuality 57.2 (2022) May 2022

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal Of Gender And Sexuality 57.2 (2022)

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.


Affect And The Tomb In Robert Henryson's Testament Of Cresseid, Elizabeth Elliott May 2022

Affect And The Tomb In Robert Henryson's Testament Of Cresseid, Elizabeth Elliott

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

The penultimate verse of Henryson’s Testament of Cresseid suggests the possibility that Troilus raised a monument in memory of his former love, Cresseid: “Sum said he maid ane tomb of merbell gray” (l. 603). Examining the political implications of this uncertain act of memorialisation, this article considers how Henryson's poem mobilises the reader's emotional response to constitute Cresseid as a mourned subject, whose subjectivity is recognised only insofar as it is limited to suffering and death. In doing so, the Testament also establishes a subjectivity for women that offers conditional tolerance predicated on respectable behaviour, contributing to the historical production …


John Crophill: A Trustworthy Man In Fifteenth-Century Rural England (Gms Essay Prize Article), Rehan Shah May 2022

John Crophill: A Trustworthy Man In Fifteenth-Century Rural England (Gms Essay Prize Article), Rehan Shah

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

This paper explores the role of trust and trustworthiness in the masculine gender identity of the fifteenth-century bailiff and medical practitioner John Crophill (d. c. 1485) who resided in Wix, Essex. Drawing on evidence from his personal notebook, the work argues that Crophill was aware of the need to construct his trustworthy reputation, a requirement enacted via his own interaction with other individuals. A consideration of three separate elements of his persona (party host, craft master, and probable involvement with childbirth) provide a structure for the paper, as Crophill seemingly negotiates his own relationships with both male and female individuals, …


Who Does She Think She Is?, Caroline W. Bynum May 2022

Who Does She Think She Is?, Caroline W. Bynum

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

Abstract: A retired medievalist uses an incident from her early career to urge younger scholars to both self-confidence and realism about their own scholarship. Pointing out that suspicion of bright, high-achieving women has not disappeared, she argues that the greatest weapon for triumphing over it is women’s self-confidence that they set their own standards for excellence.


When Feminism Isn't Enough, Monica H. Green May 2022

When Feminism Isn't Enough, Monica H. Green

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

An invited “retrospective” on Monica H. Green's career in medieval studies.


Whose Middle Ages? Teachable Moments For An Ill-Used Past, Ana C. Núñez May 2022

Whose Middle Ages? Teachable Moments For An Ill-Used Past, Ana C. Núñez

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.


The Lay Saint: Charity And Charismatic Authority In Medieval Italy, Mary Anne Gonzales May 2022

The Lay Saint: Charity And Charismatic Authority In Medieval Italy, Mary Anne Gonzales

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.


This Is My Body: Eucharistic Theology And Anthropology In The Writings Of Gertrude The Great Of Helfta, Jessica Barr May 2022

This Is My Body: Eucharistic Theology And Anthropology In The Writings Of Gertrude The Great Of Helfta, Jessica Barr

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.


The Letters Of Margaret Of Anjou, Gabrielle F. Storey May 2022

The Letters Of Margaret Of Anjou, Gabrielle F. Storey

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.


Notes On Contributors May 2022

Notes On Contributors

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.


Female Masculinity In The Embodied Beowulf Wetlands: A New, Radical, Ecofeminist Approach, Teresa Pilgrim Jan 2022

Female Masculinity In The Embodied Beowulf Wetlands: A New, Radical, Ecofeminist Approach, Teresa Pilgrim

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

This article argues that the embodied characterization of Grendel’s mother offers us an alternative heroic model for women, from the titular hero, Beowulf, around whose heroic life and legacy the Old English poem is structured and more usually celebrated. In doing so, it addresses the problematic legacy of the heroic, masculinist poem and its pedagogical role as a canonical text for English literature and national identity which also informs our cultural attitudes to gender-based violence. This article examines female masculinity in the embodied Beowulf wetlands to recover an alternative, powerful, legacy for feminism. Grounded within previous feminist, queer, ecofeminist, and …


Abduction And Feminine Expression In Sir Orfeo, Ruth Worgan Jan 2022

Abduction And Feminine Expression In Sir Orfeo, Ruth Worgan

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

This article provides a new, queer feminist reading of Sir Orfeo, in which Dame Heurodis facilitates her abduction by the Fairy King in order to destabilize the patriarchal possession of her body. Using Luce Irigaray’s work on the exchange of women between men, I discuss Heurodis’s value as a commodity and how she extricates herself from this position. Irigaray proposes that the primeval patriarchy created an exclusive between-men discourse within society, a consequence of which is the consuming masculine gaze. I consider how the silencing of the feminine is akin to the silence of the natural world, and how …


Lessons Learned—They’Re Not Just For Academia, But For Life, Linda E. Mitchell Jan 2022

Lessons Learned—They’Re Not Just For Academia, But For Life, Linda E. Mitchell

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

This look back on my career as a medieval historian of women, families, and gender focuses on the lessons I have learned from my tenure as a pre-professional and professional academic.


Notes On Contributors Jan 2022

Notes On Contributors

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.


Christine De Pizan, “The God Of Love’S Letter” And “The Tale Of The Rose”, Roberta Krueger Jan 2022

Christine De Pizan, “The God Of Love’S Letter” And “The Tale Of The Rose”, Roberta Krueger

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.


Foreword To “Gender, Science, And The ‘Natural’ World”, Laura Kalas Jan 2022

Foreword To “Gender, Science, And The ‘Natural’ World”, Laura Kalas

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

NA


The Matter Of Virtue: Women’S Ethical Action From Chaucer To Shakespeare, Masha Raskolnikov Jan 2022

The Matter Of Virtue: Women’S Ethical Action From Chaucer To Shakespeare, Masha Raskolnikov

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.


Being The Bigger Ram: Arable Vs Pastoral Masculinities In The Towneley Mactacio Abel, Daisy E. Black Jan 2022

Being The Bigger Ram: Arable Vs Pastoral Masculinities In The Towneley Mactacio Abel, Daisy E. Black

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

This article addresses the construction of rural masculine identities through a study of the Towneley manuscript play Mactacio Abel (The Killing of Abel) and the relationships the play stages between human, animal, and land. It argues that the Mactacio Abel places pastoral and arable agricultural labor in competition through the play’s two brothers, and that this competition takes the form of a gendered attack on the masculinity of each. The article begins with Cain’s arable farming and how the character’s antagonistic relationship with the earth hints at his failures as laborer and as a man. It examines Cain’s …


Women Intellectuals And Leaders In The Middle Ages, Edited By Katherine Kerby-Fulton, Katie Ann-Marie Bugyis, And John Van Engen., Linda E. Mitchell Jan 2022

Women Intellectuals And Leaders In The Middle Ages, Edited By Katherine Kerby-Fulton, Katie Ann-Marie Bugyis, And John Van Engen., Linda E. Mitchell

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.


“Let Him Walk With You”: Telling Stories About Fifteenth-Century Men, And The Women They Left Behind, Rachel E. Moss Jan 2022

“Let Him Walk With You”: Telling Stories About Fifteenth-Century Men, And The Women They Left Behind, Rachel E. Moss

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

In this article I use a blend of autoethnography and historical storytelling to explore the role of outdoor space in forming relationships between fifteenth-century men and their maintenance of hegemonic power. By weaving together three striking vignettes from late fifteenth-century England, constructed as creative retellings of the historical evidence, with autoethnographic notes on my own lived experience, I am able to fill in the gaps of the historical record and open up questions about the implications of what has been left out. I argue that the medieval cultural understanding of the outdoors as both spiritually and physically beneficial, as well …


Female Desire In Chaucer’S “Legend Of Good Women” And Medieval English Romance, Suzanne M. Edwards Jan 2022

Female Desire In Chaucer’S “Legend Of Good Women” And Medieval English Romance, Suzanne M. Edwards

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.