2:30-3:45	TR BH 217

**Carries Cultural Studies and AHLA Credit**

This course explores the rich tradition of texts authored by women
during the Middle Ages in Europe.  We will examine a selection of
these texts and address such issues as the position of women in
relation to literary, civic, and theological authority; the
relationship of literacy and authorship; and the treatment of gender
within individual texts.  Our primary readings will come from the
ninth through fifteenth centuries and from France, Germany, Italy,
Spain, the Netherlands, and England.  These include secular and
spiritual texts from a wide range of genres: lyrics, plays, letters,
vision accounts, narrative fictions, and  autobiographies.  The list
of authors includes "saints" and "heretics," members of royal courts
and members of the merchant class, mothers and nuns.

REQUIREMENTS

Students will take mid-term and final examinations and will write one
analytical essay of six to eight pages on a topic related to the class
readings.