This collection examines gender and Otherness other as tools to understand medieval and early modern art as products of their social environments. The essays, uniting a diverse array of up-and-coming and established scholars, explore both iconographic and stylistic similarities deployed to construct gender identity. The text analyzes a vast array of medieval artworks, including Dieric Bouts’s Justice of Otto III, Albrecht Dürer’s Feast of the Rose Garland, Rembrandt van Rijn’s Naked Woman Seated on a Mound, and Renaissance-era transi tombs of French women to illuminate medieval and early modern ideas about gender identity, poverty, religion honor, virtue, sexuality, and motherhood, among others.
Analyzes a wide variety of medieval and early-modern media, including manuscripts, prints, paintings, metalwork, textiles and funerary sculpture
Contextualizes medieval construction of gender identity within the concept of Otherness
Contributes significantly to the fields of art history, medieval and early modern studies, and gender studies
Carlee A. Bradbury
Jew of Bourges Aspectu Desiderabilis reliquary of David face of Medusa Clare of Assisi gendered testimony in medieval europe Dieric Bouts Justice of Otto III Durer Feast of the Rose Garland Scuola dei Tedeschi Transi tombs Naked Woman Seated on a Mound non-biblical Jewish woman in medieval art anti-semitism and medieval art
“The volume … summarizes the state of research and outlines the major theoretical issues in considering the intersection of gender, ‘otherness,’ and visual culture. … it should become a desiratum for scholars interested in gender.” (Diane Wolfthal, Early Modern Women Journal, Vol. 13 (2), 2019)