Doriane Zerka (University of Cambridge) presents, "Retracing Agency: Medieval Women Between Literature and Scholarship"

With a response from Rebecca Adams (English, Stanford). See the abstract below: 

“This paper explores the challenges of assessing women’s agency in medieval literary cultures by examining the blurred boundary between literary representation and historical evidence. Through two case studies—Leonor Plantagenet, Queen of Castile, and Elisabeth of Lorraine-Vaudémont, Countess of Nassau-Saarbrücken—it questions contrasting dynamics in the attribution of agency: Leonor is often portrayed as an active patron of troubadours based on highly conventionalized lyric sources, while Elisabeth’s documented role in translating French epics into German is frequently questioned despite explicit textual claims. Drawing on Jürgen Paul Schwindt’s concept of philology as 'retracing,' the paper argues for a methodological approach that acknowledges the continuity between literary texts and their interpretation.”