CFP: Women on the Global Medieval Stage: Performers, Producers, and
Artists (A Roundtable)
International Congress, Kalamazoo
May 10-13, 2018
In the preface to The Theatre of Medieval Europe (1991), editor Eckehard
Simon remarks that, “by the thirteenth century, to be sure, liturgical
plays were sung by nuns in some convents and fifteenth-century civic
records occasionally mention women in minor parts. But from the
Winchester Easter play of c. 975 to Shakespeare and beyond, theatre was
the province of men.” (xiii)
Despite ever-increasing evidence to the contrary, this paradigm of the
“all-male” pre-modern stage lingers, coloring our reading of women’s
public performances more broadly. A flood of revisionist scholarship –
by Pamela Brown, Melinda Gough, Natasha Korda, Peter Parolin, Clare
McManus, Lucy Munro, and Virginia Scott, for example – has wiped out
this stereotype for the early modern era. Yet despite the work of
individuals such as James Stokes, a similar movement has yet to coalesce
among medieval scholars.
This session thus seeks to reflect on the medieval community’s response
to the problem of women and performance. From nuns to noblewomen to
ordinary laywomen, instances of women’s participation in drama and other
kinds of performance are dismissed as anomalies or even impossibilities.
How many examples must be documented before the “exceptions” are seen
as part of larger cultural trends? How might consideration of varied
kinds of performance practices help us to integrate female performers,
producers, and artists into the “master” narrative? Reassessing the
influence of these women is far more than a negligible historical
corrective; reclaiming their performances is a necessity if we are to
understand the social and cultural importance of the contributions of
women to medieval life.
This session will be a roundtable in which speakers briefly share their
own work before taking part in a general discussion. In addition to
reflections on the field, we invite investigations of women as “makers”
of performance: subjects might include Hrotsvit, Hildegard, troubadour
poets, liturgical celebrations, female actors, lay patrons, and drama of
all sorts. Scholarship from varied disciplines, methodologies, time
periods, and geographical regions is especially welcome, as we hope to
engender a broad and lively exchange of ideas.
Please submit a one-page abstract *and* a completed Participant
Information Form (http://www.wmich.edu/
Susannah Crowder and Jesse Njus (scrowder@jjay.cuny.edu and
janjus1@gmail.com) no later than September 15, 2017. Feel free to
contact Susannah and Jesse with questions about the session; for general
information about the 2018 Medieval Congress, visit:
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