medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Hello all--
Anne Clark Bartlett and I are co-editing a volume of Medieval Feminist Forum focused on the reception of feminist scholarship in medieval studies. Please do consider submitting an essay to us. It's a great moment to assess what has been accomplished and what remains to be done. We look forward to hearing from you!
Best,
Ginny Blanton & Anne Clark Bartlett
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DEADLINE: 1 DECEMBER 2006
"Twenty Years Later: The Reception of Feminist Scholarship in Medieval Studies."
Twenty years ago, the Medieval Feminist Newsletter was founded as a vehicle to promote and publish feminist scholarship on the medieval period. Since its inception, there have been many changes-including the name of the journal, which is now the Medieval Feminist Forum, but the over-riding concern has been to support feminist scholarship in a field that had not embraced it.
There have been many changes in publishing since 1986 and we have seen traditional journals accept and even regularly publish woman-centered scholarship, if not feminist work as well. We can count a number of successes, good reasons to be proud of the work that has been accomplished thus far: essays in feminist journals, as well as in theoretical and non-theoretical journals on medieval studies; whole journal issues devoted to medieval feminist work; book series on women in the Middle Ages; feminist scholars serving on editorial and advisory boards, as well as
serving as editors-in-chief; etc.
It seems at times that feminist scholarship is now mainstreamed in medieval studies (perhaps even post-feminist in some minds), yet in some disciplines, in some journals, and in some specific areas of research, one might not think that medieval feminist scholarship exists. A recent review of a feminist book in art history, for example, which provided a scathing denouncement of the author's approach and training, suggests that we need to reflect on the changes made in medieval feminist scholarship since 1986 and consider where we are at this moment-and where we need to go. Toward that end, issue #43 of the Medieval Feminist Forum is devoted to "Twenty Years Later: The Reception of Feminist Scholarship in Medieval Studies."
We invite submissions focused on disciplinary specificity, aspects of publication (manuscript review, peer review, etc), the nature of book reviews, the history of medieval feminist work, institutional and scholarly memory (or lack thereof) regarding feminist work, the use of theory (or not) in medieval feminist scholarship, among others. Some possible questions to consider include:
*what obligations do we have as medieval feminist scholars
to cite and remember the scholarship of earlier feminists?
*how have we moved from citing theoretical arguments in
our work to assuming their usefulness, rather than articulating why we are
using them? and how are these expectations specific to individual disciplines?
*what has been the reception of medieval feminist
scholarship in print-in journals? at university presses? at commercial
presses? in publishing generally?
*by consequence, what is the reception of medieval
feminist scholarship in the various disciplines? are some disciplines
post-feminist while others are still struggling to recognize medieval
feminist scholarship?
*who is reviewing medieval feminist scholarship? other
feminists? scholars without a feminist agenda or training in feminist
scholarship? scholars who are in the same discipline (or not)?
*how is medieval feminist scholarship valued during tenure
review, promotion cases?
*how has medieval feminist scholarship changed? what are
the expectations of a given essay or book? whose work must be cited for it
to be considered feminist? what do footnotes look like? what do
bibliographies look like?
*what obligations do we have to protest bad reviews of
medieval feminist scholarship? to respond or to press general editors to
attend to the nature of reviews that are clearly knee-jerk reactions?
Please send electronic submissions by 1 December 2006 to:
Virginia Blanton
Associate Professor &
Principal Undergraduate Advisor
Department of English
5100 Rockhill Road
University of Missouri-Kansas City
Kansas City, MO 64110
voice: 816-235-2766
fax: 816-235-1308
office: Cockefair Hall 016H (basement)
Dr. Anne Clark Bartlett
President, DePaul University Faculty Council
Professor of English
DePaul University
802 W. Belden Ave.
Chicago, IL 60614-3214
(773) 325-1768
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Omnis historia multiplex est
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