Synopses & Reviews
Troubled Vision is an interdisciplinary collection of essays that explores the interface between gender, sexuality and vision in medieval culture. The volume represents an exciting array of scholarship dealing with visual and textual cultures from the 11th to the 15th centuries. Bringing together a range of theoretical approaches that address the troubling effects of vision on medieval texts and images, the book mediates between medieval and modern constructions of gender and sexuality.
Review
"A stimulating and engaging way to consider how vision is deployed--whether as privileged mediator or as deceptive medium--in the construction (and deconstruction) of gender categories."--The Medieval Review
"In Troubled Vision (and particularly in part two, "Troubled Looks," which is in many ways the heart of the volume), Campbell and Mills have provided a stimulating range of approaches to the intersection of vision, gender, and desire in pre-modern culture." --Suzanne Akbari, University of Toronto
Synopsis
The depiction, representation and peception of gender and sexuality in medieval literature and culture in general was deeply affected by vision of readers and writers. This collection of twelve essays, taken from a conference organised by the Gender and Medieval Studies Group in London in 2002, focuses on the theme of seeing gender'. Contributors examine the ways in which authors and artists depicted sexual relationships, the male and female bodies, the surrounding environment and world as well as the role of sight, particularly troubled looks, in lyrics and saints' Lives . Extracts from texts are presented accompanied by an English translation. This is a challenging read.
About the Author
Emma Campbell is a specialist on Old French literature.
Robert Mills is a lecturer in English Literature in the English Department, King's College London.
Table of Contents
Introduction * Part I: Troubled Desires * Picturing Same-Sex Desire--Diana Wolfthal * Visible and Invisible Bodies and Subjects in Peter Damian--William Burgwinkle * Seeing Women Troubadours without the "-itz" and "-isms"--Francesca Nicholson * Part II: Troubled Looks * The Look of Love--Simon Gaunt * Sacrificial Spectacle and Interpassive Vision in the Anglo-Norman Life of Saint Faith--Emma Campbell * Seeing Face to Face--Robert Mills * Part III: Troubled Representations * Vision Beyond Measure--Cary Howie * Sex and the Medieval City--Catherine M. Keen * Part IV: Troubled Readings * Reading Reading Women--Anne Simon * Visualizing the Feminine in the
Roman de Perceforest--Sylvia Huot * Too Many Women--Miranda Griffin * Response: The Medieval Looks Back--Sarah Salih