IMC 2011: Sessions
Session 611: 'Blood Bitokeneth Gold, as me Was Taught': The Gender Politics of Poverty and Wealth in the Middle Ages, II
Tuesday 12 July 2011, 11.15-12.45
Sponsor: | Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship |
---|---|
Organisers: | Liz Herbert McAvoy, Department of English Language & Literature, Swansea University Julie Ann Smith, Department of History, University of Sydney |
Moderator/Chair: | Julie Ann Smith, Department of History, University of Sydney |
Paper 611-a | Poverty, Gender, and Sanctity in Irish and Anglo-Saxon Saints' Vitae (Language: English) Index terms: Gender Studies, Hagiography, Women's Studies |
Paper 611-b | Riches to (Voluntary) Rags in Bozon's Lives of Women (Language: English) Index terms: Gender Studies, Women's Studies |
Paper 611-c | St Congar: Masculinities and Appropriations on the Edges of Hagiography and Romance (Language: English) Index terms: Gender Studies, Hagiography, Language and Literature - Old English |
Abstract | According to Chaucer's Wife of Bath, a woman's exploitation of her own abjection can be a means of achieving wealth, both actual and metaphorical, within a patriarchal culture. These sessions therefore aim to examine the gendered aspects of medieval concepts of wealth and poverty, the rich and the poor, both within secular and religious contexts. For example, how did wealth or poverty impact upon gender relations? To what extent were gendered religio-spiritual discourses of wealth and poverty integral to a hierarchised social system? How does this binary make itself felt in a gendered way in secular literature or in medieval notions of queen/kingship? How important is a gendered understanding of the rich-poor binary to our understanding of medieval philanthropic/misanthropic practices or pro-/anti-feminist sentiment? |