Debatable Rule:(Re)assessing Medieval Statecraft, Power, Authority, and Gender (A Roundtable)
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Royal Studies Network
Organizer Name
Zita Eva Rohr, Elena Woodacre
Organizer Affiliation
Univ. of Sydney, Univ. of Winchester
Presider Name
Zita Eva Rohr
Paper Title 1
Discussant
Presenter 1 Name
Stephen Church
Presenter 1 Affiliation
Univ. of East Anglia
Paper Title 2
Discussant
Presenter 2 Name
Theresa Earenfight
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Seattle Univ.
Paper Title 3
"To His Reverend Lady and Dearest Daughter": Familial Politics in a Bureaucratic World
Presenter 3 Name
Kimberly Klimek
Presenter 3 Affiliation
Metropolitan State Univ. of Denver
Paper Title 4
Discussant
Presenter 4 Name
Núria Silleras-Fernández
Presenter 4 Affiliation
Univ. of Colorado-Boulder
Paper Title 5
Discussant
Presenter 5 Name
Elena Woodacre
Start Date
15-5-2015 3:30 PM
Session Location
Fetzer 1005
Description
The roundtable is designed both to pull together the themes and ideas raised during the paper session and to challenge the traditional tendency to research and study queens and kings in isolation. Thanks to the lucid reflections of Theresa Earenfight (and most recent scholarship in the field), rulership by queens and kings is no longer being examined apart through the restricted lens of modern 'vanilla' political liberalism (Earenfight 2007). Instead, effective rulership and statecraft are being brought into the light as a product of complementary partnerships and particular contexts: wives and husbands, mothers and sons; elder sisters and younger brothers; and respected advisors and monarchs of both sexes. Rulership (whether queenship or kingship) is a gendered institution, but one not uniformly based upon biological sex. Instead it is founded upon nuanced psycho-social ideas of gender; 'male' or 'female' according to social and cultural distinctions and differences. The most successful political partnerships of the long Middle Ages demonstrate a clear understanding that authority and power were (and remain) precision tools of statecraft, and they wielded them to great purpose and effect. It is anticipated that the two complementary sessions proposed by the Royal Studies Network for ICM 2015 will provoke rich ideas, lively discussion and informed debate.
Zita Rohr and Ellie Woodacre
Debatable Rule:(Re)assessing Medieval Statecraft, Power, Authority, and Gender (A Roundtable)
Fetzer 1005
The roundtable is designed both to pull together the themes and ideas raised during the paper session and to challenge the traditional tendency to research and study queens and kings in isolation. Thanks to the lucid reflections of Theresa Earenfight (and most recent scholarship in the field), rulership by queens and kings is no longer being examined apart through the restricted lens of modern 'vanilla' political liberalism (Earenfight 2007). Instead, effective rulership and statecraft are being brought into the light as a product of complementary partnerships and particular contexts: wives and husbands, mothers and sons; elder sisters and younger brothers; and respected advisors and monarchs of both sexes. Rulership (whether queenship or kingship) is a gendered institution, but one not uniformly based upon biological sex. Instead it is founded upon nuanced psycho-social ideas of gender; 'male' or 'female' according to social and cultural distinctions and differences. The most successful political partnerships of the long Middle Ages demonstrate a clear understanding that authority and power were (and remain) precision tools of statecraft, and they wielded them to great purpose and effect. It is anticipated that the two complementary sessions proposed by the Royal Studies Network for ICM 2015 will provoke rich ideas, lively discussion and informed debate.
Zita Rohr and Ellie Woodacre