The Poetics of Rage: Gender, Anger, Form (A Roundtable)
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Dept. of English, Temple Univ.
Organizer Name
Carissa M. Harris, Sarah Baechle
Organizer Affiliation
Temple Univ., Univ. of Notre Dame
Presider Name
Marjorie Housley
Presider Affiliation
Univ. of Notre Dame
Paper Title 1
"Ides Aglaecwif": A New Perspective on Gender Relations through the Reading of Women's Anger in Anglo-Saxon Texts
Presenter 1 Name
Natalie M. Whitaker
Presenter 1 Affiliation
St. Louis Univ.
Paper Title 2
Affective Anatomies: The Angry Womb in Late Medieval Thought
Presenter 2 Name
Samantha Katz Seal
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Univ. of New Hampshire
Paper Title 3
Prudence's "Semblant of Wratthe" and the Limits of Chaucer's Feminism
Presenter 3 Name
Paul Megna
Presenter 3 Affiliation
Univ. of Western Australia
Paper Title 4
Anger in the Alehouse: Gendered Community, Genre, and Protest in the "Good Gossips" Carols
Presenter 4 Name
Carissa M. Harris
Paper Title 5
The Letters of Margherita Datini and the Use of Anger as an Expression of Power
Presenter 5 Name
Nicole McLean
Presenter 5 Affiliation
Univ. of Maryland
Paper Title 6
That's (Not) Funny: Medieval Laughter, Modern Rage
Presenter 6 Name
Tara Mendola
Presenter 6 Affiliation
Independent Scholar
Paper Title 7
What Does It Mean to Be an Angry Activist Scholar?
Presenter 7 Name
Dorothy Kim
Presenter 7 Affiliation
Vassar College
Start Date
13-5-2017 10:00 AM
Session Location
Fetzer 1005
Description
Women’s anger is central to medieval texts, represented as both problematic and productive: in pastourelles, rape survivors angrily and vehemently curse their rapists; in mystery plays depicting the slaughter of the innocents, mothers fight for their children’s lives with fiercely protective maternal rage; and in a variety of genres, from marital complaints to sermons to proverbs, wives are stereotyped as defiant, sharp-tongued shrews who torment their hapless husbands with wrathful invectives.
In exploring the wide variety of uses for women’s anger, our roundtable aims to situate itself within larger recent scholarly discourses regarding affect and the history of emotions. It focuses not only on the historical significance of women’s anger, but also on the possibilities of harnessing anger for positive scholarly purposes, and has important implications for the future of feminist scholarship. By examining the motivations, representations, and effects of women’s anger, and demonstrating the many ways it can be powerful, generative, and even recuperative, our roundtable seeks to offer new and fruitful ways of thinking about gender, emotion, and social change in the Middle Ages and in medieval studies.
This roundtable seeks short presentations exploring the productive role of women’s anger in medieval texts. We particularly welcome papers examining women’s anger as a means of resistance to gender inequalities, papers which seek to articulate the significance of medieval women’s anger for modern-day teaching, research, and activism, and papers that address the role of female anger within the discipline of medieval studies.
Sarah Baechle
The Poetics of Rage: Gender, Anger, Form (A Roundtable)
Fetzer 1005
Women’s anger is central to medieval texts, represented as both problematic and productive: in pastourelles, rape survivors angrily and vehemently curse their rapists; in mystery plays depicting the slaughter of the innocents, mothers fight for their children’s lives with fiercely protective maternal rage; and in a variety of genres, from marital complaints to sermons to proverbs, wives are stereotyped as defiant, sharp-tongued shrews who torment their hapless husbands with wrathful invectives.
In exploring the wide variety of uses for women’s anger, our roundtable aims to situate itself within larger recent scholarly discourses regarding affect and the history of emotions. It focuses not only on the historical significance of women’s anger, but also on the possibilities of harnessing anger for positive scholarly purposes, and has important implications for the future of feminist scholarship. By examining the motivations, representations, and effects of women’s anger, and demonstrating the many ways it can be powerful, generative, and even recuperative, our roundtable seeks to offer new and fruitful ways of thinking about gender, emotion, and social change in the Middle Ages and in medieval studies.
This roundtable seeks short presentations exploring the productive role of women’s anger in medieval texts. We particularly welcome papers examining women’s anger as a means of resistance to gender inequalities, papers which seek to articulate the significance of medieval women’s anger for modern-day teaching, research, and activism, and papers that address the role of female anger within the discipline of medieval studies.
Sarah Baechle