CONGRESS CANCELED Subjects of Violence: Women, Resistance, and Consent in Medieval Literature
Description
In the wake of the #metoo movement, medieval studies has fruitfully taken back up the subjects of rape culture, consent, and feminist approaches to the Middle Ages, particularly in Middle English literature and studies of Chaucer’s biography. This session explores the duality of medieval literature about rape and consent: it can challenge patriarchal hegemonies and offer victims a voice. Yet, representations of female subjectivity and victimization—especially when male-authored—can also exploit female pain as spectacle and instead assert patriarchal dominance. This panel illuminates the nuances of this duality and enunciates strategies for its ethical treatment in scholarship.
Elizaveta Strakhov
CONGRESS CANCELED Subjects of Violence: Women, Resistance, and Consent in Medieval Literature
Fetzer 2040
In the wake of the #metoo movement, medieval studies has fruitfully taken back up the subjects of rape culture, consent, and feminist approaches to the Middle Ages, particularly in Middle English literature and studies of Chaucer’s biography. This session explores the duality of medieval literature about rape and consent: it can challenge patriarchal hegemonies and offer victims a voice. Yet, representations of female subjectivity and victimization—especially when male-authored—can also exploit female pain as spectacle and instead assert patriarchal dominance. This panel illuminates the nuances of this duality and enunciates strategies for its ethical treatment in scholarship.
Elizaveta Strakhov