IMC 2023: Sessions

Session 501: Epic Women: Women's Voices in Early Medieval English Literature

Sponsor:	Medieval & Early Modern Studies, Flinders University, Adelaide
Organiser:	Erin Sebo, Department of English, Creative Writing & Australian Studies, Flinders University, Adelaide
Moderator/Chair:	Erin Sebo, Department of English, Creative Writing & Australian Studies, Flinders University, Adelaide
Paper 501-a	Why Are Women's Voices Muted in Beowulf? (Language: English) M. Wendy Hennequin, Department of Languages, Literature & Philosophy, Tennessee State University Index terms: Gender Studies, Language and Literature - Old English
Paper 501-b	Entanglements, Secular, and Spiritual: The Old English Elene and Judith as Mediating Earthly and Spiritual Tensions (Language: English) Cassandra Schilling, College of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide Index terms: Gender Studies, Language and Literature - Old English
Abstract	The study of early English women has relied heavily on investigations into socio-political roles, examining forms of behaviour, particularly those presumed to be coded based on gender. However, recent ideological and theoretical shifts have brought certain gendered predispositions - such as assuming anonymous authors to be male - into question. This has produced new potential to uncover hitherto obscured understandings of what women chose to convey publicly or privately, how and why they did so through particular forms, and what such expressions might reveal about ideas, concerns and values held by or about such women.