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hrjAlas, I cannot go to both this session and the one on singlewomen, alas! But this one has a Welsh-related paper (that better not be cancelled!).
Session 494: Gendering Representation
“Every Trace of a Woman’s Gentleness Removed from Her Face”: Captive Abuse, Gender, and Representation in the Case of the Empress Matilda and the Battle of Lincoln, 1141 (Colleen Slater, Cornell Univ.)
Discussion of representations of the experience of anger, expected to be expressed in various activities rather than simply being a subjective experience. Due to the humoral differences between men and women, men’s anger was expected to burn fiercely but quickly, while women’s anger was expected to “smolder” over a long time and be less controlable. Anger was originally considered incompatible with kingship, but a new understanding developed of “righteous royal anger” that was not simply acceptable but expected. This conflicted with a pragmatic understanding of a king’s need to sublimate anger to policy needs and goals. In this context, how an author portrays anger comments on the author’s attitude towards the angry person. Matilda, however, did not have social sanction for experiencing “royal anger” and therefore her angry actions are treated as dangerously out-of-control rather than as justified (if extreme). It is framed as personal, arrogant, and immoderate. The historic narrator blames her eventual failure on this inappropriate behavior. [me: And I’ve seen modern historians accept this as fact rather than interpretation.] In contrast, the descriptions of Stephan’s wife, Queen Mathilda are used as a foil for the Empress Mathilda’s behavior, with Queen Mathilda being described as being humble, forgiving, and generous. The Empress may have been politically unsavvy, but her actions are judged in a gendered way. Her expression of anger, which might have been considered within the range of acceptable male behavior, is viewed as both an expression of “uncontrolled female rage” and as improper female behavior.
Performance Trouble: The Misrepresentation of Gendered Anatomy in the Chester Cycle’s The Slaughter of the Innocents and Sir David Lindsay’s Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis (Judith R. Anderson, Univ. of Alberta)
(She apologizes for giving a bowdlerized version of her papers title in the advance publicity, having been uncertain what e-mail inbox filters would do with “vaginas, penises, and anuses”.) Discussion of various texts of the “Three Estates” where a bawdy passage addressed to women in the audience, adjuring them that they shouldn’t leave if they have to piss but just do it in the ditch, there is an obscure word sometimes interpreted as “anus” but in context more logically interpreted as “vagina”. This “missing vagina” theme connects with the Slaughter of the Innocents text where mothers of the threatened babies threaten gendered violence (e.g., assaulting with distaffs) against Herod’s soldiers. One mother refers to her child as having “two holes under the tail”, with modern interpreters interpreting this as her proclaiming (defiantly) that her child is a boy (with the penis and anus being the two holes) as opposed to defending it as a girl (relying on a hearer treating the vagina and urethra as separate “holes” for a girl, thus giving her three rather than two).
“Some of the fair ones will be poison”: Gender and Self in the March of Tudor Wales (Sarah Zeiser, Harvard Univ.)
Analysis of a poem by the 15th c. Welsh female poet Gwerful Mechain [me: I’ve read some of her compositions when doing performances from “Medieval Welsh Erotic Poetry”], who commonly expresses “feminist” attitudes in the context of an often male-centric literary tradition. The poem considered today is in the “in defense of women” vein, presenting a poetic “answer” to Ieuan Dyfi’s poetic tirade against an assortment of “bad women” by listing an equivalent list of “good women” covering Biblical, classical, and Welsh examples. Ieuan’s poem seems to have been triggered by his rejection by a particular woman (which may be put in context by the discovery of records of an accusation in court against him for rape, by that same woman).
Faithful Observation: Alisoun of Bath, Representation, and the Gender of Christianity (Teresa P. Reed, Jacksonville State Univ.)
[me: This sounds like it’s going to be a typical “wife of Bath as earthy proto-feminist” approach.] The general thrust seems to be that Alisoun uses the structures and logic of the theological establishment to contradict their conclusions. [me again: I’m having trouble wading through all the signifying bodies … checking out now]
Note: I probably won’t be blogging the Pseudosession, due not only to the “you had to be there” factor, but also because I don’t want to be toting the laptop around with me all evening. It is, however, possible that I may post random silly stuff via the iPhone. If it turns out to be incomprehensible … cope. For completeness, the Pseudosession title and listed papers are:
Fee, Fie, Faux, Fu(m)n
Looking for Joan, or, It’s the Frogs, Merde! (Helen Maurer, Independent Scholar)
Medieval Mortality: A Radical Reconsideration (A. Mark Smith, Univ. of Missouri–Columbia)
François Vilon: Important New Discoveries (Evelyn Birge Vitz, New York Univ.)
Session 494: Gendering Representation
“Every Trace of a Woman’s Gentleness Removed from Her Face”: Captive Abuse, Gender, and Representation in the Case of the Empress Matilda and the Battle of Lincoln, 1141 (Colleen Slater, Cornell Univ.)
Discussion of representations of the experience of anger, expected to be expressed in various activities rather than simply being a subjective experience. Due to the humoral differences between men and women, men’s anger was expected to burn fiercely but quickly, while women’s anger was expected to “smolder” over a long time and be less controlable. Anger was originally considered incompatible with kingship, but a new understanding developed of “righteous royal anger” that was not simply acceptable but expected. This conflicted with a pragmatic understanding of a king’s need to sublimate anger to policy needs and goals. In this context, how an author portrays anger comments on the author’s attitude towards the angry person. Matilda, however, did not have social sanction for experiencing “royal anger” and therefore her angry actions are treated as dangerously out-of-control rather than as justified (if extreme). It is framed as personal, arrogant, and immoderate. The historic narrator blames her eventual failure on this inappropriate behavior. [me: And I’ve seen modern historians accept this as fact rather than interpretation.] In contrast, the descriptions of Stephan’s wife, Queen Mathilda are used as a foil for the Empress Mathilda’s behavior, with Queen Mathilda being described as being humble, forgiving, and generous. The Empress may have been politically unsavvy, but her actions are judged in a gendered way. Her expression of anger, which might have been considered within the range of acceptable male behavior, is viewed as both an expression of “uncontrolled female rage” and as improper female behavior.
Performance Trouble: The Misrepresentation of Gendered Anatomy in the Chester Cycle’s The Slaughter of the Innocents and Sir David Lindsay’s Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis (Judith R. Anderson, Univ. of Alberta)
(She apologizes for giving a bowdlerized version of her papers title in the advance publicity, having been uncertain what e-mail inbox filters would do with “vaginas, penises, and anuses”.) Discussion of various texts of the “Three Estates” where a bawdy passage addressed to women in the audience, adjuring them that they shouldn’t leave if they have to piss but just do it in the ditch, there is an obscure word sometimes interpreted as “anus” but in context more logically interpreted as “vagina”. This “missing vagina” theme connects with the Slaughter of the Innocents text where mothers of the threatened babies threaten gendered violence (e.g., assaulting with distaffs) against Herod’s soldiers. One mother refers to her child as having “two holes under the tail”, with modern interpreters interpreting this as her proclaiming (defiantly) that her child is a boy (with the penis and anus being the two holes) as opposed to defending it as a girl (relying on a hearer treating the vagina and urethra as separate “holes” for a girl, thus giving her three rather than two).
“Some of the fair ones will be poison”: Gender and Self in the March of Tudor Wales (Sarah Zeiser, Harvard Univ.)
Analysis of a poem by the 15th c. Welsh female poet Gwerful Mechain [me: I’ve read some of her compositions when doing performances from “Medieval Welsh Erotic Poetry”], who commonly expresses “feminist” attitudes in the context of an often male-centric literary tradition. The poem considered today is in the “in defense of women” vein, presenting a poetic “answer” to Ieuan Dyfi’s poetic tirade against an assortment of “bad women” by listing an equivalent list of “good women” covering Biblical, classical, and Welsh examples. Ieuan’s poem seems to have been triggered by his rejection by a particular woman (which may be put in context by the discovery of records of an accusation in court against him for rape, by that same woman).
Faithful Observation: Alisoun of Bath, Representation, and the Gender of Christianity (Teresa P. Reed, Jacksonville State Univ.)
[me: This sounds like it’s going to be a typical “wife of Bath as earthy proto-feminist” approach.] The general thrust seems to be that Alisoun uses the structures and logic of the theological establishment to contradict their conclusions. [me again: I’m having trouble wading through all the signifying bodies … checking out now]
Note: I probably won’t be blogging the Pseudosession, due not only to the “you had to be there” factor, but also because I don’t want to be toting the laptop around with me all evening. It is, however, possible that I may post random silly stuff via the iPhone. If it turns out to be incomprehensible … cope. For completeness, the Pseudosession title and listed papers are:
Fee, Fie, Faux, Fu(m)n
Looking for Joan, or, It’s the Frogs, Merde! (Helen Maurer, Independent Scholar)
Medieval Mortality: A Radical Reconsideration (A. Mark Smith, Univ. of Missouri–Columbia)
François Vilon: Important New Discoveries (Evelyn Birge Vitz, New York Univ.)
