It's with a heavy heart that I post my last blog. I do not have any original points to add about Margery, but I did wanted to share a story.
Several months ago, I attended the SEMA conference and sat in on the session called Gender in the Middle Ages. A graduate student presented a paper on Margery Kempe cleverly titled, "'I Am Woman, Hear Me Wail': Discussing How Gender Affects the Authorship of Margery Kempe." Her paper basically noted Margery's defiance to the "male-dominated clergy" by her extreme actions. During discussion, the presenter explained that Margery's only term for herself was "creature." Margery acquired an nonsexual persona in the story instead of fighting against the male dominated clergy with her femininity. This statement really resonated in me. I hadn't realized that instead of using her sex, Margery loses her sex for humility and possibly, the ability to act within a category that does not have limits-that of a creature.
Well, in honor of this class, I wanted to leave this post with a video that shows a monster and an other. It has been a pleasure!
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2 comments:
I'd just like to point out another way in which the text Annie has submitted to our attention connects with dynamics of othering the Middle Ages, in this case the religious othering of heretical Christian communities (something we didn't really touch on but which would be interesting to pursue in another life). In this case, the name "Albi" evokes the town of that name in southern France, which was associated in the early thirteenth century with the Cathar heresy and the crusade marshalled by the Catholic hierarchy to crush it (the Albigensian Crusade). So this interpretation would turn the torch-wielding villagers into crusaders (and land-hungry northern French noblemen) and Albi the Racist Dragon (and the burned Albanian child) into pacifistic southern French sectarians. A tenable reading, I think...
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