Description
Book SynopsisScholarship on early medieval England has seen an exponential increase in scholarly work by and about women over the past twenty years, but the field has remained peculiarly resistant to the transformative potential of feminist critique. Since 2016, Medieval Studies has been rocked by conversations about the state of the field, shifting from #MeToo to #WhiteFeminism to the purposeful rethinking of the label “Anglo-Saxonist.” This volume takes a step toward decentering the traditional scholarly conversation with thirteen new essays by American, Canadian, European, and UK professors, along with independent scholars and early career researchers from a range of disciplinary perspectives. Topics range from virginity, women’s literacy, and medical discourse to affect, medievalism, and masculinity. The theoretical and political commitments of this volume comprise one strand of a multivalent effort to rethink the parameters of the discipline and to create a scholarly community that is innovative, inclusive, and diverse.
Table of ContentsIntroduction (Robin Norris, Rebecca Stephenson, and Renée R. Trilling)
Metacritical Considerations
1. The Lost Victorian Women of Early Medieval English Studies (M. J. Toswell)
2. Embroidered narratives (Christina Lee)
3. Remembering the Lady of Mercia (Scott Thompson Smith)
Affect Theory
4. Be a Man, Beowulf: Sentimental Masculinity and the Gentleness of Kings (E.J. Christie)
5. Shame, Disgust and Ælfric’s Masculine Performance (Alice Jorgensen)
Treatments of Virginity
6. The Ornament of Virginity: Aldhelm’s
De uirginitate and the Virtuous Women of the Early English Church (Emily V. Thornbury)
7. Chaste Bodies and Untimely Virgins: Sexuality, Temporality, and Bede’s Aethelthryth (Lisa M.C. Weston)
Medical Discourse
8.
Mona.gecynd and
flewsan: Wanted and Unwanted Monthly Courses in Old English Medical Texts (Dana M. Oswald)
9. Dangerous Voices, Erased Bodies: Reassessing the Old English Wifgemædla and Witches in Leechbook III (Erin E. Sweany)
10. Women and “Women’s Medicine” in Early Medieval England, from Text to Practice (Christine Voth)
Women’s Literacy
11. The Literate Memory of Hugeburc of Heidenheim (Aidan Conti)
12. A Road Nearly Taken: An Eighth-Century Manuscript in a Woman’s Hand and Franco-Saxon Nuns in Early Medieval English Intellectual History (Matthew T. Hussey)
13.”Historical Accuracy,” Anonymity, and Women’s Authorship: The Case of the Case for
Beowulf (Stephen Yeager)
