The ‘Longue Durée’ of the Querelle des femmes: Gender, Materiality, Form

Workshop organized by Elizabeth L'Estrange, 2017-2018 Paris IAS fellow

Presentation

This workshop brings together specialists in the literary, artistic and manuscript history of the querelle des femmes – begun by Christine de Pizan in the early fourteenth century – and the querelle de la Belle dame sans mercy – sparked by Alain Chartier’s 1424 poem of the same name. Its aim is to explore not only the works of Christine and Alain but also to examine the enduring legacy of these two authors and the debates that they initiated during the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries around the nature and the defence of the female sex. The papers will thus offer new perspectives on some well-known texts, as well as bring to light some lesser known authors and their works, and unknown manuscripts. They will explore the different literary forms that querelle texts could take together with instances of intertextuality to see how they served the authors’ purposes. The material, manuscript, contexts in which the works of Alain, Christine and others were circulated and collected will also be considered, as well as the historical and political dimensions that informed the texts’ creation and reception. The workshop thus aims to tease out further the legacy of the querelle des femmes and the querelle de la BDSM and to examine the dialogues these debates generated between the representation of women, literary form, manuscript production, authors and readers, and wider cultural trends in fifteenth and sixteenth century France.

Presentations of c. 30 minutes with c. 30 minutes discussion. Some reading will be circulated in advance. Please get in touch if you would like a copy.

Program

Morning - Chair: Anne Paupert, Université Paris-Diderot

9.30 - 10.30  Literary Debate: The Quarrel of the Rose and Quarrel of the Belle dame sans mercy
Joan E. McRae, Middle Tennessee State University

10.30 - 11.30   Christine de Pizan and St Thomas Aquinas on Natural Inclination
Thelma Fenster, Fordham University

11.30 - 12.00   Break

12.00 - 13.00   Par voix de lettres, la Querelle des femmes chez Christine de Pizan
Dominique Demartini, Paris-3

13.00 - 14.00   Lunch Break

Après-midi - Chair: Thelma Fenster, Fordham University

14.00 - 15.00   “Maintien des dames la querelle”: The profeminine reception of the works of Alain Chartier
Emma Cayley, University of Exeter

15.00 - 16.00   Anne de Graville Updates Medieval Masters in the Querelle des femmes
Daisy Delogu, University of Chicago

16.00 - 16.30   Break

16.30 - 17.30   Books, Texts, and Authors in Dialogue: Situating Anne de Graville in the Querelle des femmes
Elizabeth L’Estrange, IEA de Paris / University of Birmingham