| Description |
This two-day workshop will look at 'tricky topics' in teaching and research – subjects that students might find sensitive and researchers might be somewhat nervous about broaching, but that at the same time are of great interest in today's universities and that can, perhaps, helpfully be approached with a historical perspective.
On the first day, we will consider gendered violence, rape and marriage in the medieval world and in modern medievalist texts and other media. Attitudes to women in medieval texts can be alienating: female characters often seem without agency, valued only for their looks; girls are married off without reference to their own wishes; rape and gender-based violence abound. Martyrs all suffer violence, of course, but the violence to which female martyrs are subjected often focuses on their female bodies, and rape seems to bring with it a shame that we would now call victim-blaming. These attitudes may be mirrored in modern products of medievalism, from Tolkien's almost woman-free Lord of the Rings to the semi-pornographic Game of Thrones. How far do any of these works reflect the realities of medieval women's lives? When might literature shape, as well as reflect, history – and how dangerously? And how should we approach texts that include sexual violence in the classroom? Discussion will be conducted in English but will examine texts from various European traditions, and from genres including epic, romance, hagiography, drama; it will consider ways in which attitudes to rape, violence, and marriage shifted through the Middle Ages; it will include a 'bring a text' session in which participants can discuss texts--medieval or medievalist-that they have found particularly problematic, either to study or to teach; it will also include a talk on the use of drama in the classroom, and a workshop on story-telling.
On the second day, we will consider race and religion, particularly the presentation of Jews, Muslims, and Christians in Early Global drama. Historical constructions of a religious 'other' have received considerable scholarly attention, but it seems now more important than ever to interrogate texts that illuminate relations among Jews, Muslims and Christians. This doctoral school will begin with the biblical Queen Esther, wife of the Persian King Ahasuerus, who delivered the Jews from genocide, though the deliverance was achieved through a massacre of Persians. The feast of Purim is still today an occasion of tension and sometimes violence between Jewish and Muslim communities. Esther's story is dramatized in the Jewish purimshpil, and in a number of free-standing dramas in Christian Europe that related the situation of the Jews to the contemporary situation of many European Protestants. In Switzerland, Johann Fridolin Lautenschlager's Ester, which was performed at a wedding, makes Esther the model of a 'good wife' by contrast with the 'bad wife' Vashti, but also uses the choice of wife as an allegory of the confessional choices that faced the canton of Fribourg. By contrast, the anonymous English Enterlude of Godly Queene Hester refigures Esther's defence of the Jews as a defence of the English monastic orders under threat of Dissolution. The doctoral school will explore the European contexts – Christian and Jewish – for the English play, attending to the portrayals of the Islamic Persian court and to the ideals of womanhood reflected in Esther and Vashti. The larger themes will therefore be gender (connecting with the first day) and religious-racial discrimination, particularly islamophobia and antisemitism, and historical trauma: the doctoral school will reflect on these themes today, and encourage participants to explore the challenges presented by discussing such matters in the classroom, particularly in relation to cultural appropriations.
Prof. Cathy Hume (Uni Birmingham, UK) will present a historical perspective on marriage in medieval Europe, and Dr Benedetta Viscidi (Uni Fribourg) will introduce the presentation of rape in French romance texts.
Prof. Cora Dietl (Uni Giessen) will introduce some German female saints' plays, and will participate in a 'Q and A' session, alongside Mr. Perry Mills (King Edward VI School, Director of Edward's Boys) on staging plays as a pedagogical method, particularly as an approach to discussing gender and race. Perry Mills will be accompanied by some of his boy actors and conference participants will be given an opportunity to try their hand at directing them.
Dr Juliette Vuille will talk on domestic abuse in modern adaptations of the Wife of Bath, and Dr Daisy Black (Uni Wolverhampton, UK) will give a brief talk on gender and medievalism in board game culture: she will then lead a workshop in which conference participants can try their hand at story-telling techniques useful in the university classroom.
Prof. Daniel Boyarin (UC Berkeley) will give a presentation on gender and Judaism, and will participate in a workshop with Prof. Matthew Dimmock (Uni Sussex, UK), an expert on Islam in medieval and early modern texts, and Dr Stephanie Mahrer (Uni Bern), a historian working on antisemitism and intersectional perspectives: doctoral students will be invited to present aspects of their research which might touch on these topics, and will receive help and advice from these experts. (Of these, CUSO funding is sought for Dietl, Mills, Black, Boyarin and Dimmock). |
Workshop language is English 
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