Voices In Dialogue
Subtitle: Reading Women In The Middle Ages
Contributors: Linda Olson (Editor); Kathryn Kerby-Fulton (Editor)
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
Published: June 30, 2005
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 508
ISBN-13: 9780268037178
Subjects: Christian ministry & pastoral activity; Literacy; Social history; Women's studies; c 1000 CE to c 1500; c 500 CE to c 1000 CE; Literature - Classics / Criticism; Literary Criticism; Medieval; Women Authors; Women's Studies - History; History; History and criticism; Literature, Medieval; Middle Ages, 500-1500; To 1500; Women; Women and literature
First sentence: Determining the literacy of past individuals and communities is a complex, often fraught project, and it too often seems that the more we learn, the more complicated the matter becomes, the more unstable the ground beneath our feet grows, and the more inadequate our pre-existing definitions and categories appear.
Description: "Using a dialogue format, contributors to this collection of essays outline key issues in the cultural history of medieval women. Many of the essays in this volume provide compelling evidence that women in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages achieved an accomplished form of literacy, and became actively involved in literary networks of textual production and exchange. These essays also present new research on questions of the literacy and authorship of historical women. In so doing they demonstrate that medieval women, like many medieval men, did not read in isolation, but were surrounded and assisted by both male and female colleagues...Voices in Dialogue challenges the historical and literary work of modern medieval scholars by questioning traditionally accepted evidence, methodologies, and conclusions. It will push those engaged in the field of medieval studies to reflect upon the manner in which they conceive, write, and teach history, as it urges them to situate historical women prominently within the intellectual and spiritual culture of the Middle Ages." -- Book jacket.