Women on the Global Medieval Stage: Performers, Producers, and Artists (A Roundtable)
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Special Session
Organizer Name
Susannah Crowder; Jesse Njus
Organizer Affiliation
John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY; Virginia Commonwealth Univ.
Presider Name
Susannah Crowder; Jesse Njus
Paper Title 1
Women and Performance: The Evidence Too Obvious to See
Presenter 1 Name
James Stokes
Presenter 1 Affiliation
Univ. of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
Paper Title 2
Female Actors on Stages of Their Own Making: Thirteenth-Century Cultural Concepts
Presenter 2 Name
Paula Karger
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Univ. of Toronto
Paper Title 3
From Exile to Enclosure: A Troveress's Contrafactum
Presenter 3 Name
Rachel Ruisard
Presenter 3 Affiliation
Univ. of Maryland
Paper Title 4
Drama Queen: The Virgin and the Theater
Presenter 4 Name
Emma Maggie Solberg
Presenter 4 Affiliation
Bowdoin College
Start Date
10-5-2018 7:30 PM
Session Location
Fetzer 1045
Description
Despite ever-increasing evidence to the contrary, this paradigm of the “all-male” pre-modern stage lingers, coloring our reading of women’s public performances more broadly. A flood of revisionist scholarship – by Pamela Brown, Melinda Gough, Natasha Korda, Peter Parolin, Clare McManus, Lucy Munro, and Virginia Scott, for example – has wiped out this stereotype for the early modern era. Yet despite the work of individuals such as James Stokes, a similar movement has yet to coalesce among medieval scholars.
This session thus seeks to reflect on the medieval community’s response to the problem of women and performance. From nuns to noblewomen to ordinary laywomen, instances of women’s participation in drama and other kinds of performance are dismissed as anomalies or even impossibilities. How many examples must be documented before the “exceptions” are seen as part of larger cultural trends? How might consideration of varied kinds of performance practices help us to integrate female performers, producers, and artists into the “master” narrative? Reassessing the influence of these women is far more than a negligible historical corrective; reclaiming their performances is a necessity if we are to understand the social and cultural importance of the contributions of women to medieval life.
This session will be a roundtable in which speakers briefly share their own work before taking part in a general discussion. In addition to reflections on the field, we invite investigations of women as “makers” of performance: subjects might include Hrotsvit, Hildegard, troubadour poets, liturgical celebrations, female actors, lay patrons, and drama of all sorts. Scholarship from varied disciplines, methodologies, time periods, and geographical regions is especially welcome, as we hope to engender a broad and lively exchange of ideas.
Signed, Susannah Crowder and Jesse Njus
Women on the Global Medieval Stage: Performers, Producers, and Artists (A Roundtable)
Fetzer 1045
Despite ever-increasing evidence to the contrary, this paradigm of the “all-male” pre-modern stage lingers, coloring our reading of women’s public performances more broadly. A flood of revisionist scholarship – by Pamela Brown, Melinda Gough, Natasha Korda, Peter Parolin, Clare McManus, Lucy Munro, and Virginia Scott, for example – has wiped out this stereotype for the early modern era. Yet despite the work of individuals such as James Stokes, a similar movement has yet to coalesce among medieval scholars.
This session thus seeks to reflect on the medieval community’s response to the problem of women and performance. From nuns to noblewomen to ordinary laywomen, instances of women’s participation in drama and other kinds of performance are dismissed as anomalies or even impossibilities. How many examples must be documented before the “exceptions” are seen as part of larger cultural trends? How might consideration of varied kinds of performance practices help us to integrate female performers, producers, and artists into the “master” narrative? Reassessing the influence of these women is far more than a negligible historical corrective; reclaiming their performances is a necessity if we are to understand the social and cultural importance of the contributions of women to medieval life.
This session will be a roundtable in which speakers briefly share their own work before taking part in a general discussion. In addition to reflections on the field, we invite investigations of women as “makers” of performance: subjects might include Hrotsvit, Hildegard, troubadour poets, liturgical celebrations, female actors, lay patrons, and drama of all sorts. Scholarship from varied disciplines, methodologies, time periods, and geographical regions is especially welcome, as we hope to engender a broad and lively exchange of ideas.
Signed, Susannah Crowder and Jesse Njus