Saints' Lives and the Rhetoric of Gender

Saints' Lives and the Rhetoric of Gender PDF Author: John Kitchen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195353617
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Medieval lives of female saints have attracted wide attention in recent years. Some scholars have argued that such texts reveal a distinctive form of female sanctity which only female hagiographers managed to properly articulate, and important writings have been attributed to female authors on that assumption. In this revisionist work, John Kitchen tests such claims through a close examination of several texts--lives of both male and female saints, by authors of both sexes--from sixth century France. He argues that sometimes the "authentic voice" of the female writer or saint sounds emphatically male. This study gives examples of how both male and female authors sometimes depicted holy women talking, acting, or even dressing like their male counterparts. Ultimately, the author aims to cast doubt on the assumption that male authors were ignorant of or hostile toward certain--specifically female--concerns. By the same token, Kitchen's work raises serious methodological problems with the gender approach to the hagiographic literature of the early Middle Ages.

The Third Gender and Aelfric's Lives of Saints

The Third Gender and Aelfric's Lives of Saints PDF Author: Rhonda L McDaniel
Publisher: Medieval Institute Publications
ISBN: 1580443109
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
In The Third Gender, McDaniel addresses the idea of the "third gender" in early hagiography and Latin treatises on virginity and then examines Aelfric's treatment of gender in his translations of Latin monastic Lives for his non-monastic audiences. She first investigates patristic ideas about a "third gender" by describing this concept within the theoretical frameworks of monasticism and then turns to creating a historical and theological cultural context within which to locate an interpretation of Aelfric's portrayals of male and female saints.

Saints' Lives and the Rhetoric of Gender

Saints' Lives and the Rhetoric of Gender PDF Author: John Kitchen
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9781280470417
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
Medieval lives of female saints have attracted wide attention in recent years. Some scholars have argued that such texts reveal a distinctive form of female sanctity which only female hagiographers managed properly to articulate, and important writings have been attributed to female authors on that assumption. In this revisionist work, John Kitchen tests such claims through a close examination of several texts-lives of both male and female saints, by authors of both sexes-from sixth century France. He argues that sometimes the "authentic voice" of the female writer or saint sounds emphatically male. This study gives examples of how both male and female authors sometimes depicted holy women talking, acting, or even dressing like their male counterparts. Ultimately, the author aims to cast doubt on the assumption that male authors were ignorant of or hostile toward certain-specifically female-concerns. By the same token, Kitchen's work raises serious methodological problems with the gender approach to the hagiographic literature of the early Middle Ages.

Troubled Vision

Troubled Vision PDF Author: E. Campbell
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137114517
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
Troubled Vision is an interdisciplinary collection of essays that explores the interface between gender, sexuality and vision in medieval culture. The volume represents an exciting array of scholarship dealing with visual and textual cultures from the Eleventh to the Fifteenth centuries. Bringing together a range of theoretical approaches that address the troubling effects of vision on medieval texts and images, the book mediates between medieval and modern constructions of gender and sexuality. Troubled Vision focuses thematically on four central themes: Desire, looking, representation and reading. Topics include the gender of the gaze, the visibility of queer desires, troubled representations of gender and sexuality, spectacle and reader response, and the visual troubling of modern critical categories.

Perceptions of Femininity in Early Irish Society

Perceptions of Femininity in Early Irish Society PDF Author: Helen Oxenham
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1783271167
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
An examination of how the feminine was viewed in early medieval Ireland, through a careful study of a range of texts.

Social Mobility in Late Antique Gaul

Social Mobility in Late Antique Gaul PDF Author: Allen E. Jones
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521762391
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
Barbarian Gaul -- Evidence and control -- Social structure I : hierarchy, mobility and aristocracies -- Social structure II : free and servile ranks -- The passive poor : prisoners -- The active poor : pauperes at church -- Healing and authority I : physicians -- Healing and authority II : enchanters

Writing Women Saints in Anglo-Saxon England

Writing Women Saints in Anglo-Saxon England PDF Author: Paul E. Szarmach
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442646128
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
The twelve essays in this collection advance the contemporary study of the women saints of Anglo-Saxon England by challenging received wisdom and offering alternative methodologies. The work embraces a number of different scholarly approaches, from codicological study to feminist theory. While some contributions are dedicated to the description and reconstruction of female lives of saints and their cults, others explore the broader ideological and cultural investments of the literature. The volume concentrates on four major areas: the female saint in the Old English Martyrology, genre including hagiography and homelitic writing, motherhood and chastity, and differing perspectives on lives of virgin martyrs. The essays reveal how saints' lives that exist on the apparent margins of orthodoxy actually demonstrate a successful literary challenge extending the idea of a holy life.

Women and Gender in Medieval Europe

Women and Gender in Medieval Europe PDF Author: Margaret C. Schaus
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135459606
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 985

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Book Description
From women's medicine and the writings of Christine de Pizan to the lives of market and tradeswomen and the idealization of virginity, gender and social status dictated all aspects of women's lives during the middle ages. A cross-disciplinary resource, Women and Gender in Medieval Europe examines the daily reality of medieval women from all walks of life in Europe between 450 CE and 1500 CE, i.e., from the fall of the Roman Empire to the discovery of the Americas. Moving beyond biographies of famous noble women of the middles ages, the scope of this important reference work is vast and provides a comprehensive understanding of medieval women's lives and experiences. Masculinity in the middle ages is also addressed to provide important context for understanding women's roles. Entries that range from 250 words to 4,500 words in length thoroughly explore topics in the following areas: · Art and Architecture · Countries, Realms, and Regions · Daily Life · Documentary Sources · Economics · Education and Learning · Gender and Sexuality · Historiography · Law · Literature · Medicine and Science · Music and Dance · Persons · Philosophy · Politics · Political Figures · Religion and Theology · Religious Figures · Social Organization and Status Written by renowned international scholars, Women and Gender in Medieval Europe is the latest in the Routledge Encyclopedias of the Middle Ages. Easily accessible in an A-to-Z format, students, researchers, and scholars will find this outstanding reference work to be an invaluable resource on women in Medieval Europe.

The Rhetoric of Gender Terms

The Rhetoric of Gender Terms PDF Author: Francesca Santoro L'Hoir
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9789004095120
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
The aim of this work is to recover classical Roman assumptions about women on the basis of the surviving linguistic data. The resulting analysis throws light not only on Roman gender vocabulary but also on Roman cultural perceptions of class, moral worth and nationality.

Polemic

Polemic PDF Author: Almut Suerbaum
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317079299
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
If terms are associated with particular historical periods, then ’polemic’ is firmly rooted within early modern print culture, the apparently inevitable result of religious controversy and the rise of print media. Taking a broad European approach, this collection brings together specialists on medieval as well as early modern culture in order to challenge stubborn assumptions that medieval culture was homogenous and characterized by consensus; and that literary discourse is by nature ’eirenic’. Instead, the volume shows more clearly the continuities and discontinuities, especially how medieval discourse on the sins of the tongue continued into early modern discussion; how popular and influential medieval genres such as sermons and hagiography dealt with potentially heterodox positions; and the role of literary, especially fictional, debate in developing modes of articulating discord, as well as demonstrating polemic in action in political and ecclesiastical debate. Within this historical context, the position of early modern debates as part of a more general culture of articulating discord becomes more clearly visible. The structure of the volume moves from an internal textual focus, where the nature of polemic can be debated, through a middle section where these concerns are also played out in social practice, to a more historical group investigating applied polemic. In this way a more nuanced view is provided of the meaning, role, and effect of ’polemic’ both broadly across time and space, and more narrowly within specific circumstances.