Helene Scheck – författare

New Readings on Women and Early Medieval English Literature and Culture showcases current and original scholarship relating to women in Early Medieval English culture and in Early Medieval English studies and promises to stimulate new work in those areas. Honouring the eminent scholar Helen Damico as well as the seminal volume she edited almost thirty years ago with Alexandra Hennessy Olsen, the essays in this volume remind us that feminist inquiry is as vital and robust as it was then. Recognizing the plasticity of gender structures, roles, and relations in Early Medieval English literature and culture as well as within the modern discipline of Early Medieval English Studies, the essays reveal pluralities of gender bequeathed to us and encourage us to rethink power/gender dynamics in our present moment. As the Introduction explains, the essays in this collection offer new paths into an increasingly rich area of study. Their diversity and freshness, along with their archival and methodological range, reveal a robust commitment to feminist interdisciplinarity, while their refusal of any grand master narrative takes seriously the complexity of Anglo-Saxon women’s lives, as well as the elusive relationship between history, literary symbols, textual representations, and social and cultural practices.

Explores the relationship between gender and identity in early medieval Germanic societies.Honorable Mention, 2010 First Book Prize presented by the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship The early Middle Ages were a vibrant period rich with possibility for both men and women. Reform and Resistance explores the relationship between gender and identity in early medieval Germanic societies, centering mostly on competing perceptions of female subject formation in times of conversion, reform, and resistance. While women played an active role in the spread of Christianity during the Middle Ages, their freedoms were often restricted by the Church during periods of reform, when uniformity and conformity were important. Helene Scheck's inquiry extends beyond one specific region or historical moment through two centuries and three diverse Germanic regions: Carolingian France, late Anglo-Saxon England, and Ottonian Saxony. Each of these moments exhibits distinct yet interconnected stages of conversion and reform, different stages of cultural amalgamation out of which various possibilities for female subject formation emerge. The book also connects with current conversations about the interrelatedness of power, knowledge, and subjectivity, opening new possibilities for the study of women in early ecclesiastical cultures.