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IMC 2021: Sessions

Session 424: Women's Epistolary Culture: New Approaches to Letters to and from Women - A Round Table Discussion

Monday 5 July 2021, 19.00-20.30

Sponsor:Epistolae: Medieval Women's Latin Letters
Organiser:Iona Baker, School of Humanities, University of Glasgow
Moderator/Chair:Kathryn Maude, Department of English, American University of Beirut
Abstract

Letters have not yet been fully utilised, and letters to and from women, which reveal much about their lives and participation in social, political, and religious cultures, in particular have not yet received the level of critical attention that they deserve. This round table discussion will interrogate the state of research on women's epistolary culture and propose some ideas for future scholarship. Ranging from the letters of the Cairo Geniza to early medieval missionary letters in Northern Europe, we hope to open up a space for an interdisciplinary discussion of letters as a central part of women's history.

Participants include Iona Baker (University of Glasgow), Francesca Battista (Independent Scholar, Wien), Kathleen Neal (Monash University, Victoria), Anaïs Waag (University of Lincoln), and Esther-Miriam Wagner (University of Cambridge).