Felice Lifshitz

This is a brief book—five short essays plus an introduction—which nonetheless presents some interesting (though perhaps not groundbreaking) ideas about the intersections of religion and gender in the lives of medieval Western Europeans. In her introduction, Bitel asserts that medieval historians should aim for greater "binocularity" in their work, as using gender as a single lens through which to look at the Middle Ages will create distortions. All the essays ably demonstrate just how much work remains to be done in the field of gender studies, though I think it's Karras' essay to which I will return the most. I haven't quite worked out if I agree with her or not (in part because I'm not sure if she's arguing that medieval European culture only admitted of two genders, with variations thereof, or if she's arguing that that holds true in other cultures? I'm not sure how trans people/genderqueer people would fit into her schema of the Middle Ages, or even if she'd admit of her existence. Possibly this could be resolved with more discussion of medieval gender theory versus gender practice/experience?)… (more)