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

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May 11th, 10:00 AM

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