Reform and Resistance

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Reform and Resistance
Formations of Female Subjectivity in Early Medieval Ecclesiastical Culture

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Helene Scheck - Author

SUNY series in Medieval Studies

Price: $70.00
Hardcover - 250 pages

Release Date: July 2008

ISBN10: N/A
ISBN13: 978-0-7914-7483-9

Price: $24.95
Paperback - 250 pages

Release Date: July 2009

ISBN10: N/A
ISBN13: 978-0-7914-7484-6

Price: $24.95
Electronic - 250 pages

Release Date: July 2008

ISBN10: N/A
ISBN13: 978-0-7914-7813-4

Summary

Explores the relationship between gender and identity in early medieval Germanic societies.

The early Middle Ages were a vibrant period rich with possibility for both men and women. Reform and Resistance explores the relationship between gender and identity in early medieval Germanic societies, centering mostly on competing perceptions of female subject formation in times of conversion, reform, and resistance. While women played an active role in the spread of Christianity during the Middle Ages, their freedoms were often restricted by the Church during periods of reform, when uniformity and conformity were important. Helene Scheck’s inquiry extends beyond one specific region or historical moment through two centuries and three diverse Germanic regions: Carolingian France, late Anglo-Saxon England, and Ottonian Saxony. Each of these moments exhibits distinct yet interconnected stages of conversion and reform, different stages of cultural amalgamation out of which various possibilities for female subject formation emerge. The book also connects with current conversations about the interrelatedness of power, knowledge, and subjectivity, opening new possibilities for the study of women in early ecclesiastical cultures.

“This book connects Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Latin material to the fascinating work of Hrotsvit of Gandersheim. This connection has seldom, if ever, been made, and yet Scheck not only makes it but also explores it fully. She opens up new ways of reading both traditions. I also like the emphasis placed on Anglo-Latin and ecclesiastical culture, since it is more common for studies of women in the early Middle Ages to focus on vernacular and lay traditions.” — Shari Horner, author of The Discourse of Enclosure: Representing Women in Old English Literature

Helene Scheck is Assistant Professor of English at the University at Albany, State University of New York.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations

1. Women in/and Early Ecclesiastical Culture: An Overview

2. The Limits of Orthodoxy: Being Female and Female Being under Charlemagne

3. Soul Searching: Alcuin of York and His Circle of Female Scholars

4. Redressing the Female Subject: Women, Transvestite Saints, and the Anglo-Saxon Benedictine Reform

5. Resounding Silences: Mary and Eve in Anglo-Saxon Reform Literature

6. Hrotsvit of Gandersheim: Claiming Her Voice

7. Hrotsvit of Gandersheim: Recasting Female Subjectivities

Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Related Subjects

Christianity
History
Literature
Medieval Studies
Women's Studies

47148/47149(JP/RM/MC)