Medieval Studies/Women’s Studies

Christine de Pizan, an Italian-born writer in French in the early fifteenth century, composed lyric poetry, debate poetry, political biography, and allegory. At times complicit, at times subversive, at times revisionary, her texts constantly negotiate the hierarchical and repressive discourses of late medieval court culture. How they do so is the focus of this volume, which places Christine’s work in the context of larger discussions about medieval authorship, identity, and categories of difference. Here, contributors from the fields of history, literature, legal theory, art history, and medieval studies offer a truly interdisciplinary perspective on the Christine corpus.

Contributors: Michel-André Bossy, Cynthia J. Brown, Mary Anne C. Case, Thelma Fenster, Mary Weitzel Gibbons, Monica H. Green, Judith L. Kellogg, Roberta Krueger, Deborah McGrady, Benjamin M. Semple, Charity Cannon Willard, and Diane Wolfthal.

Marilynn Desmond is associate professor of English and comparative literature at the State University of New York at Binghamton. She is the author of Reading Dido: Gender, Textuality, and the Medieval Aeneid, also published by the University of Minnesota Press.

University of Minnesota Press
Printed in U.S.A.
Cover art: Christine de Pizan and Minerva, from the Livre des faits d’armes et de chevalerie, 1434. Reproduced with permission from the British Library.