Seeking Authority: Women, Genre, and Philosophical Reflection in Medieval and Early Modern Europe
Day 1: Saturday February 15 – Central and Late Middle Ages
8:15: Doors open
9:00-9:30 -- Session 1: Welcome – Introduction
Welcome: Christia Mercer
Elizabeth Castelli, Barnard College, Columbia University, "Exceptional Women and Late Ancient Christian Ideas of Epistemic Authority."
9:30-12:15 -- Session 2: Women, Men, and the Spiritual
Chair, Natalie Hejduk, PhD Student, Philosophy
Katie Bugyis, University of Notre Dame, “Prayer as Self-Examination for the Women Religious of Leominster Abbey”
Lauren Mancia, Brooklyn College, “If Only There Were a Fire in Me: Spiritual Advice Between Monastic Men and Medieval Women”
Holly Flora, Tulane University, “Charisma and Gender in an Illuminated Manuscript of Bonaventure’s Life of Saint Francis"
12:15-1:00 Lunch
1:00 - 3:00 -- Session 3: Women, the Self, and its Relation to God
Chair, Olivia Branscum, PhD Student, Philosophy
Margot Fassler, University of Notre Dame, “Hildegard's Cosmology: Tradition Transformed”
Christina Van Dyke, Calvin College, “Women's Voices, God's Honor: Allaying Worries about Female Authorship in the 13th-14th centuries”
3:00-3:15 Break
3:15-6:15 -- Session 4: Women on the Self and Community in England and the Low Countries
Patricia Dailey, Columbia University, "Slant Knowing. On the Auctoritas of Poetic Language in Hadewijch of Brabant"
Barbara Zimbalist, University of Texas El Paso, “Vision, Text, and Female Community in the Convent of Facons”
Sara Ritchey, University of Tennessee, “Feminine Therapeutic Epistemologies: Performance, Repetition, and Erasure in the Late Medieval Lowlands”
Day 2: Sunday February 16 – Early Modern Thought
8:45: Doors open
9:30-12:15 -- Session 5: Crossing Boundaries
T. Emil Homerin, University of Rochester, “Learning, Literacy, and Authority: cĀ’ishah al-Bācūnīyah”
Aziza Shanazarova, University of Pittsburgh, “Female Religious Authority and Sanctity from a Sufi Perspective”
Christia Mercer, Philosophy, Columbia University, "Teresa of Ávila: From Radical Doubt and Demons to Radical Epistemic Authority"
12:15-1:00 Lunch
1:00- 3:00 -- Session 6: Women, Jewish Identity, and Self-Assertion
Elishiva Carlebach, History, Columbia University, "Rivkah bat Meir: Female Authorship and the Limits of Authority in early modern Central Europe."
Clémence Boulouque, Religion, Columbia University, "Sara Copia Sulam: Female Authority, Jewish Identity and the Pursuit of Knowledge in Seventeenth Century Venice."
RSVP with Aminah Hasan-Birdwell, [email protected]
This workshop is organized by the Center for New Narratives in Philosophy and the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life. It is co-sponsored by the Department of Philosophy, the Department of English and Comparative Literature, and Columbia Maison Française.
