WDLI 234W - Wmn Sickness & Sanct in Mid Ag

Institution:

Duquesne University

Subject:

WDLI - World Literatures

Description:

In this course, students will explore through texts written by and about medieval women the complicated relationship between sanctity, sin, and illness in the Late-Middle Ages. Among the female authors we will visit are Hildegard of Bingen (her visionary work, Scivias, and her medical treatise, Causes and Cures), Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim (selected plays), Julian of Norwich (Showings), Margery Kempe (The Book), and the gynecological writings attributed to Trotula. Male-authored texts will include selections from Jacobus de Voragine¿s Golden Legend, sints¿ vitae written by Thomas of Cantimpre and Jacques of Vitry (e.g. the lives of Marie d¿Oignies and Christina the Astonishing), and excerpts from the quasi-medical text, The Secrets of Women. In the late-medieval period, the boundaries between divine inspiration, visionary experience, religious passion, demon possession, madness, and symptoms deriving from gynecological ailments were not clearly delineated. The female soul and body often became the domain where the process of discerning among these overlapping experiences took place. In this course, we will consider how medieval writers conceptualized the mystical experiences, martyrdoms, and illnesses of women. In particular, we will grapple with the ways sex and gender shape texts by comparing how men and women wrote about the female soul and body. By comparing, for example, text such as the saint¿s vitae of Thomas of Cantimpre or Jaques of Vitry with the autobiographical accounts of visionaries such as Hildegard and Margery Kempe, students will be able to analyze how the biographies of female saints written by male hagiographers differ from holy women¿s accounts of their own lives. Students will also read and take turns presenting to their classmates a selection of relevant secondary literature. Among those scholars whose work will be used are Caroline Walker Bynum, Joan Cadden, Rudolph Bell, Nancy Caciola, Dyan Elliott, Barbara Newman and Walter Simon. Although a few of the primary readings in this course were originally written in Middle English, the great majority were written in Latin. Should there be sufficient interest and ability in this class, there is hope to conduct a Latin reading group in conjunction with this course.

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.duq.edu

Phone Number:

(412) 396-6000

Regional Accreditation:

Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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