Putting Women in the Pulpit: A Roundtable about Women and Preaching
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Society for the Study of Anglo-Saxon Homiletics (SSASH)
Organizer Name
Brandon W. Hawk
Organizer Affiliation
Rhode Island College
Presider Name
Jill Hamilton Clements
Presider Affiliation
Univ. of Alabama-Birmingham
Paper Title 1
The Impact of the Lynne Grundy Memorial Trust
Presenter 1 Name
Jill M. Fitzgerald
Presenter 1 Affiliation
United States Naval Academy
Paper Title 2
Is There Agency as an Exemplar? Women as Universal Models in Early English Texts and the Study of Homilies
Presenter 2 Name
Rachel Elizabeth Grabowski
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Georgetown Univ.
Paper Title 3
Gendered Salvation: Subject and Perspective in Old English Eschatological Homilies
Presenter 3 Name
Amity Reading
Presenter 3 Affiliation
DePauw Univ.
Paper Title 4
Ælfric's Jewish Women: Judith and Esther
Presenter 4 Name
Samantha Zacher
Presenter 4 Affiliation
Cornell Univ.
Start Date
10-5-2019 10:00 AM
Session Location
Sangren 1740
Description
Women cannot be separated from the study of Anglo-Saxon preaching. They appear directly or implicitly throughout the corpus of Anglo-Saxon preaching texts, as well as much of the evidence about preaching in early England. Throughout the twentieth century and up to the present, female scholars have been integral to the study of Anglo-Saxon preaching. We find significant editions and studies by Dorothy Bethurum, Mary Clayton, Helen Foxhall Forbes, Mechthild Gretsch, Antonette diPaolo Healey, Joyce Hill, Clare Lees, Joyce Tally Lionarons, Amity Reading, Mary Swan, Elaine Treharne, Dorothy Whitelock, and Samantha Zacher. The past decade has brought about the publications of major books by women featuring sermons–and many of them featuring medieval female voices–such as Zacher’s Preaching the Converted: The Style and Rhetoric of the Vercelli Book Homilies (2009); Lionarons’s The Homiletic Writings of Archbishop Wulfstan (2010); Treharne’s Living Through Conquest: The Politics of Early English, 1020-1220 (2012); Forbes’s Heaven and Earth in Anglo‑Saxon England: Theology and Society in an Age of Faith (2013); and Reading’s Reading the Anglo-Saxon Self Through the Vercelli Book (2018).
The proposed roundtable, then, will feature reflections about women in Anglo-Saxon and related preaching texts as well as the work of women on medieval homiletics, in order to showcase medieval female voices, past scholarship, and a forum for lively discussion of future directions. With the hopes of foregrounding the study of gender in Anglo-Saxon studies, this roundtable will provide an intervention in historiography meant to celebrate the legacy of women in the field. Brandon W. Hawk
Putting Women in the Pulpit: A Roundtable about Women and Preaching
Sangren 1740
Women cannot be separated from the study of Anglo-Saxon preaching. They appear directly or implicitly throughout the corpus of Anglo-Saxon preaching texts, as well as much of the evidence about preaching in early England. Throughout the twentieth century and up to the present, female scholars have been integral to the study of Anglo-Saxon preaching. We find significant editions and studies by Dorothy Bethurum, Mary Clayton, Helen Foxhall Forbes, Mechthild Gretsch, Antonette diPaolo Healey, Joyce Hill, Clare Lees, Joyce Tally Lionarons, Amity Reading, Mary Swan, Elaine Treharne, Dorothy Whitelock, and Samantha Zacher. The past decade has brought about the publications of major books by women featuring sermons–and many of them featuring medieval female voices–such as Zacher’s Preaching the Converted: The Style and Rhetoric of the Vercelli Book Homilies (2009); Lionarons’s The Homiletic Writings of Archbishop Wulfstan (2010); Treharne’s Living Through Conquest: The Politics of Early English, 1020-1220 (2012); Forbes’s Heaven and Earth in Anglo‑Saxon England: Theology and Society in an Age of Faith (2013); and Reading’s Reading the Anglo-Saxon Self Through the Vercelli Book (2018).
The proposed roundtable, then, will feature reflections about women in Anglo-Saxon and related preaching texts as well as the work of women on medieval homiletics, in order to showcase medieval female voices, past scholarship, and a forum for lively discussion of future directions. With the hopes of foregrounding the study of gender in Anglo-Saxon studies, this roundtable will provide an intervention in historiography meant to celebrate the legacy of women in the field. Brandon W. Hawk