Principles

Generally, participants will meet in the mornings on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday for seminars and workshops conducted by core faculty and guest lecturers. On Tuesday and Thursday afternoons they will meet to exchange their own ideas about texts read, to participate in readings of texts or to perform them, or to debate pedagogical strategies for including these texts in their own courses. Films such as Chris Newby's The Anchoress may be shown, or recordings of trobairitz lyrics played. Other afternoons will be reserved for reading or field-trips to the Rare Book Room of the Houston Public Library, the Museum of Fine Arts, and the Menil Collection. On Wednesday mornings appointments with participants will be scheduled.

Topics

To facilitate the greatest possible participation, and also because of the breadth of this new "canon," and the reading it entails, all works with the exception of the Middle English will be read in translation. There is another reason for this: many of these texts in the ori ginal language are available only in inaccessible, out-of-print, or expensive editions (Christine de Pizan's Middle French Le Livre de la Cite des Dames , for example, exists only in the 1886-91 edition of Maurice Roy published by Firmin Didot, although a c ritical edition is in the works). Copies of the original editions will be placed on reserve or made available through an Institute reading room. While prior knowledge of the works will not be required, participants will be encouraged to acquire the texts necessary for the Institute before departure and to read ahead. Several longer translations (such as Christine de Pizan's Book of the City of Ladies) are currently available in inexpensive paperback editions. A packet of all other readings, both primary an d secondary, will be sent to each participant ahead of time. Included with this packet will be two cassettes of the poems and works by medieval women: the two-volume cassette recording, Voicing Medieval Women, organized by Professor Jocelyn Wogan-Brown for the Chaucer Studio, and containing readings in Middle English, Old Norse, Provenc al, Middle French, and Latin performed by contemporary women scholars ( 1996), and the five-volume cassette recording by Professor Alexandra Barrett of Julian of Norwich Revelations of Divine Love (1993). Recommended additional readings will also be placed on a Reserve Shelf in the library or in a special room in the building where the Institute will be housed.