The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Women's Writing

Carolyn Dinshaw is Professor of English and Director of the Centre for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at New York University. She is the author of Chaucer's Sexual Poetics (1989), and Getting Medieval: Sexualities and Communities, Pre- and Postmodern (1999). David Wallace is Judith Rodin Professor at the Department of English at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the editor of The Cambridge History of Medieval Literature, and the author of Chaucerian Polity.

• Contributors; Chronology Chris Africa; Introduction Carolyn Dinshaw and David Wallace; Part I. Estates of Women: 1. Female Childhoods Daniel T. Kline; 2. Virginity Ruth Evans; 3. Marriage Dyan Elliott; 4. Widows Barbara Hanawalt; 5. Between Women Karma Lochrie; Part II. Texts and Other Spaces: 6. Women and authorship Jennifer Summit; 7. Enclosure Christopher Cannon; 8. At home; out of the house Sarah Salih; 9. Beneath the pulpit Alcuin Blamires; Part III. Medieval Women: 10. Heloise Christopher Baswell; 11. Marie de France Roberta L. Krueger; 12. The Roman de la Rose, Christine de Pizan, and the querelles des femmes David F. Hult; 13. Lyrics and romances Sarah McNamer; 14. Julian of Norwich Nicholas Watson; 15. Margery Kempe Carolyn Dinshaw; 16. Continental women mystics and English readers Alexandra Barratt; 17. Joan of Arc Nadia Margolis; Guide to further reading.

'While The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Women's Writing comprehensiveness makes it valuable as an introduction to the field, individual articles such as Summit's, as well as Christopher Cannon's argument in 'enclosure' for anchoritic life and literature as 'crucial arenas in which the modern self was first defined and mapped' will also recommend this volume as are source for advanced scholars.' Arthuriana