Bodies and Gender in Marie de France: New Theoretical Lenses (A Roundtable)
Sponsoring Organization(s)
International Marie de France Society
Organizer Name
Regula M. Evitt
Organizer Affiliation
Colorado College
Presider Name
Simonetta Cochis
Presider Affiliation
Transylvania Univ.
Paper Title 1
Bodies in Translation: La vie seinte audree
Presenter 1 Name
Tamara Bentley Caudill
Presenter 1 Affiliation
Jacksonville Univ.
Paper Title 2
"Le veir vus en dirai sanz faile": Lanval's Camouflaged Bodies and Displacing Gazes
Presenter 2 Name
Regula M. Evitt
Paper Title 3
Marie's Saint Patrick in Purgatory: Dignity and the Penitent Body
Presenter 3 Name
Donna Alfano Bussell
Presenter 3 Affiliation
Univ. of Illinois-Springfield
Paper Title 4
"La semblance de vus prendrai": Bodies and Gender in Marie de France's Yonec
Presenter 4 Name
Julie Human
Presenter 4 Affiliation
Univ. of Kentucky
Paper Title 5
"Sa nature peot hum guenchir": Interspecies Kinship in Marie de France's Fables
Presenter 5 Name
Aylin Malcolm
Presenter 5 Affiliation
Univ. of Pennsylvania
Paper Title 6
Doubled Bodies in Le Fresne and Eliduc
Presenter 6 Name
Susan Hopkirk
Presenter 6 Affiliation
Univ. of Toronto
Start Date
11-5-2019 10:00 AM
Session Location
Fetzer 1045
Description
This session focuses on how and what material bodies can signify in medieval culture in the works of Marie de France (the Lais, the Fables, the Espurgatoire seint Patriz, La vie Seinte Audree). Four to five Roundtable presenters will consider the complex spectrum of medieval gender identities revealed to us through Marie’s various literary genres, exploring medieval conversations about how narratives that focus on the body’s parameters (from essentialist to performative) might represent sex, gender, and sexuality in different ways. Presenters may consider bodies torn between the demands of the physical and the devotional, with specific focus on monstrous, hybrid, comical, political, and social bodies. Discussants will address the impact of recent theoretical interests on Marie’s narrative uses of bodies, including, but not limited to, performance theory, gender theory, and post-colonial theory. The objective is to generate discussion between roundtable presenters and participants to consider the functions of mimicry, gender-ambiguity, and wounded-ness (among others) in the creation of narrative selves, as well as how the dynamic variety of bodies represented in Marie’s works can give us access to medieval conversations about the forces underlying theological, political, social, and textual power. Simonetta Cochis
Bodies and Gender in Marie de France: New Theoretical Lenses (A Roundtable)
Fetzer 1045
This session focuses on how and what material bodies can signify in medieval culture in the works of Marie de France (the Lais, the Fables, the Espurgatoire seint Patriz, La vie Seinte Audree). Four to five Roundtable presenters will consider the complex spectrum of medieval gender identities revealed to us through Marie’s various literary genres, exploring medieval conversations about how narratives that focus on the body’s parameters (from essentialist to performative) might represent sex, gender, and sexuality in different ways. Presenters may consider bodies torn between the demands of the physical and the devotional, with specific focus on monstrous, hybrid, comical, political, and social bodies. Discussants will address the impact of recent theoretical interests on Marie’s narrative uses of bodies, including, but not limited to, performance theory, gender theory, and post-colonial theory. The objective is to generate discussion between roundtable presenters and participants to consider the functions of mimicry, gender-ambiguity, and wounded-ness (among others) in the creation of narrative selves, as well as how the dynamic variety of bodies represented in Marie’s works can give us access to medieval conversations about the forces underlying theological, political, social, and textual power. Simonetta Cochis