Join us for an online talk by Prof. Klazina Staat from Ghent University.

Since the second feminist wave, there has been a growing awareness of the importance of women authors and artists in European cultural history. Scholarship has resulted in the rediscovery and reclamation of a huge body of texts written by women, which, although they lag behind the literature written by men in numbers, yet demonstrate that over the centuries there has been much more room for female literacy than is often thought or admitted. Nevertheless, little attention has been paid to the first female authors whose texts have survived in the Western tradition: women from the first millennium of Christianity (4th-11th c.), who wrote in Latin and on Christian subjects. This lecture aims to give a face to some of these forgotten women and to draw attention to the role of Christianity in their female empowerment. Who were these authors and what did they write? What does their literature say about women’s literacy and education, and which role did Christianity play in all this?

Zoom Meeting ID: 87448110218
Passcode: CPStalk