NOTE: This seminar was last offered in 1995. It will undergo revision before I offer it again.
HISTORY 211: GRADUATE COLLOQUIUM
WOMEN AND GENDER IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE
Spring 1995
Instructor: Bruce L. Venarde
DESCRIPTION
  Focussed discussion of recent historiography on subjects including work, power, motherhood and reproduction, the family, religion, sexuality, and the body, with excursus into medieval sources and a comparative glance at early America. Evaluations within the contexts of social history, women's history, and the history of gender and sexuality, as well as broader questions about the characteristics, successes, and difficulties of historiography on these subjects.
REQUIREMENTS
  • Active participation in weekly discussions
  • 2 short (5 to 7 pages) essay-reviews, due no later than 2 March/6 April
  • Collective oral report on collected writings about women and gender (late April)
  • 15-page historiographical essay on a given topic, theme, or author, due 8 May
#  ordered at the book store
+  on reserve in Wessell in "Binder for History 211"
I. Introductions
1.
+  Eileen Power, "The Position of Women" in The Legacy of the Middle Ages , ed. C.G. Crump and E.F. Jacobs [1926]
+  Jo Ann McNamara and Suzanne Wemple, "The Power of Women Through the Family in Medieval Europe, 500-1100," Feminist Studies 1 (1973): 126-141
+ Joan Scott, "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis," American Historical Review 91 (1986): 1053-1075
+  Jo Ann McNamara, "The Herrenfrage: The Restructuring of the Gender System, 1050-1150," in Clare A. Lees, ed., Medieval Masculinities: Regarding Men in the Middle Ages [1994]
II. Women and...
2.  WORK:
#  David Herlihy, Opera Muliebria: Women and Work in Medieval Europe [1990]
+ Judith Bennett, "'History That Stands Still': Women's Work in the European Past," Feminist Studies 14 (1988): 269-283

3. POWER:
#  Marjorie Chibnall, The Empress Mathilda: Queen Mother, and Lady of the English [1992]
Megan McLaughlin, "The woman warrior: gender, warfare and society in medieval Europe," Women's Studies 17 (1990): 193-209

4.  MOTHERHOOD:
#  Clarissa Atkinson, The Oldest Vocation: Christian Motherhood in the Middle Ages [1991]

5. MARRIAGE:
+ Diane Owen Hughes, "From Brideprice to Dowry in Mediterranean Europe," Journal of Family History 3 (1978): 262-296
#  Georges Duby, Medieval Marriage: Two Models from Twelfth-Century France [1978]

6. REPRODUCTION:
#  John Riddle, Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance [1992]

7. RELIGION:
#  Penelope D. Johnson, Equal in Monastic Profession: Religious Women in Medieval France [1991]
III. Excursus: A Woman's Voice(s)?
8.
The Letters of Abelard and Heloise (ca.1132-1142)
+ Mary M. McLaughlin, Peter Abelard and the Dignity of Women: Twelfth-Century 'Feminism' in Theory and Practice," in RenČ Louis et al., ed., Pierre AbČlard-Pierre le VČnČrable [1975]
+ Barbara Newman, "Authority, Authenticity, and the Repression of Heloise," Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 22 (1992): 121-157
IV. Gender (Trouble?)
9.
#  John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century [1980]
+ David M. Halperin, "Is There a History of Sexuality?,"History and Theory 28 (1989): 257-274

10.
#  Caroline Walker Bynum, Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body [1991]
V. A Comparative Glance
11.
#  Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife's Tale: the Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812 [1990]
+ Linda K. Kerber et al., "Beyond Roles, Beyond Spheres: Thinking About Gender in the Early Republic," William and Mary Quarterly 46 (1989): 565-576
VI. Retrospect and Prospect
12. COLLECTIVE ENTERPRISES
Susan M. Stuard, ed., Women in Medieval Society [1976]
Mary Erler and Maryanne Kowaleski, ed., Women and Power in the Middle Ages [1988]
Judith M. Bennett, ed., Sisters and Workers in the Middle Ages [1989]
Joel T. Rosenthal, ed. Medieval Women and the Sources of Medieval History [1990]
Clare A. Lees, ed., Medieval Masculinities: Regarding Men in the Middle Ages [1994]
13. TEACHING MEDIEVAL WOMEN
#  Emilie Amt, ed., Women's Lives in Medieval Europe: A Sourcebook [1993]