Remnants of the Past: Grendel’s Mother, Wealhtheow, and the Pagan Past

Within medieval studies, Beowulf is, by far, one of the most well-known and analyzed texts. While much scholarship focuses on subjects such as lexical analysis, Beowulf’s actions, the symbolism of Grendel, women’s roles and expectations, medieval politics, and many other notable topics, a less-popular, but significant theme within Beowulf is the fluctuating state of religion throughout Anglo-Saxon history. Rather than depicting a binary system between Christianity and paganism, the poem acknowledges the ongoing conversion process, which presented overlaps of both beliefs. The result of this process was folklore and this ambiguous system plays a major role throughout Beowulf. However, this theme is not in the foreground of the poem; rather, it is shown through the female characters, Wealhtheow and Grendel’s Mother. The use of these foils reveals the anxiety concerning folklore within society without distracting from the hero and his courageous exploits. While Grendel’s Mother is representative of the pagan past and its remaining influences on the culture of the poem, Wealhtheow represents an attempted reconciliation with and inclusion of that past, while also demonstrating the failures of this society of blended religious values. - from page

The Author and the Authors of the 'Vita Ædwardi Regis:' Women's Literary Culture and Digital Humanities

Commissioned by Queen Edith in the 1060s, the Vita Ædwardi Regis (hereafter VER) has recently received substantial scholarly attention, including focus on identification of the author of this putatively anonymous text; the quest for authorial identification has until now proceeded with the assumption of sole authorship of the text. Lexomics, an open-access vocabulary analysis tool, adds digital strategies to more traditional literary and historical analyses; the Lexomic evidence indicates that the VER is a composite text built by multiple contributors under the direction of the queen. Not only did Edith's patronage cause the VER to be written, but her knowledge, and her personal and political interests, shaped the Life's content. Hers was the active, guiding intellect behind the entire text, and in two passages the VER appears not only to communicate the queen's intentions but also to preserve her voice. If any one person is to be identified as the 'author' of the VER, therefore, it is Edith, guiding a team of writers and scribes to tell her story

Astronomy and Literature | Canon and Stylometrics

This eighth issue of Interfaces contains two thematic clusters: the first cluster, entitled The Astronomical Imagination in Literature through the Ages, is edited by Dale Kedwards; the second cluster, entitled Medieval Authorship and Canonicity in the Digital Age, is edited by Jeroen De Gussem and Jeroen Deploige

Undoing gender through performing the other

Following the perspective of gender as a socially constructed performance, consumer research has given light to how individuals take on, negotiate, and express a variety of gender roles. Yet the focus of research has remained on gender roles themselves, largely overlooking the underlying process of gender performativity and consumers’ engagement with it in the context of their everyday lives. Set within a performance methodology and the context of crossplay in live action role-playing games, this paper explores how individuals undo gender on a subjective level, thus becoming conscious and reflexive of gender performativity. The study suggests that individuals become active in undoing gender through engaging in direct, bodily performance of the gender other. Such performance does not challenge or ridicule norms, but pushes individuals to actively figure out for themselves how gender is performed. As a result, individuals become aware of gender performativity and become capable of actively recombining everyday performance