Nasty Women: Villains, Witches, Rebels in the Middle Ages

Sponsoring Organization(s)

Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship (SMFS); Society for the Study of Homosexuality in the Middle Ages (SSHMA)

Organizer Name

Graham N. Drake; Kersti Francis

Organizer Affiliation

SUNY-Geneseo; Univ. of California-Los Angeles

Presider Name

Kersti Francis

Paper Title 1

Nasty Woman or Medieval Mystic? The Perplexing Case of Margery Kempe of Lynn, Medieval Rebel Extraordinaire

Presenter 1 Name

Melissa Crofton

Presenter 1 Affiliation

Florida Institute of Technology

Paper Title 2

"What maner womman artow?": Challenges to Female Authority in The Canterbury Tales

Presenter 2 Name

Martin Laidlaw

Presenter 2 Affiliation

Univ. of Dundee

Paper Title 3

"[W]ycchys bothe fer and nere": Female Saint as Witch in Capgrave's Life of Saint Katherine

Presenter 3 Name

Erin K. Wagner

Presenter 3 Affiliation

SUNY-Delhi

Start Date

10-5-2019 3:30 PM

Session Location

Sangren 1740

Description

Recent debates in modern discourse have centered around appropriate boundaries of feminine behavior. "Nastiness" has become a by-word for a specific type of womanhood, one that pushes the boundaries of acceptable sexual agency, political power, and social hierarchies. This panel will explore the various ways in "nastiness" existed in the Middle Ages, with a particular focus on gender and sexuality. How did contemporary authors, philosophers, or courts depict or deal with subversive women? How did women conceive of their own power in terms of sexual acts, gender expression, and other forms of socially-rebellious behavior? The papers in this session will address these issues through several lenses, providing new insight in the critical discourses of queer and feminist medieval scholarship. Graham N. Drake