Papers by Betsy McCormick
To go back to the past, let alone come back from the future, one has to have gone some “where”; y... more To go back to the past, let alone come back from the future, one has to have gone some “where”; yet, outside the realms of science fiction, Texas Ranch House’s promise of a trip to the Texas range circa 1867 is not physically possible. To come back to one’s self, again, one has to have gone some “where” in the first place; yet, the medieval dream vision details the fictional journey to and from the ineffable world of a dream. In any of these instances where, exactly, does the individual go? Into the realm of the liminal.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer, 2006
Games and Gaming in Medieval Literature, 2015
Medieval scholarship has traditionally operated on an assumption about, rather than an investigat... more Medieval scholarship has traditionally operated on an assumption about, rather than an investigation into, both the term and the theoretical concept of “game.” Such an assumption is ironic not only in light of the many medieval texts that serve as games themselves, but because the scholar who first considered the seriousness of games was himself a medievalist: the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga.2 Although Huizinga’s 1938 publication, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture, remains the foundational text for the field of cultural game studies, as this collection illustrates, there is still much to explore about premodern games. For Huizinga, the “ludic function” is not just a way to explore and understand culture: it is cultural production. The ludic function creates a cultural product by creating meaning and cultural memory through the experience of play and of the playing of games. The chapters in this book highlight the ludic function by showing how medieval writers, players, readers, ecclesiastics, and others produced, enjoyed, and interpreted the games they played. But it is also important to understand the history of cultural game theory and its roots in medieval culture. The aim of this afterword is to consider these chapters in their larger theoretical context and to demonstrate not only how medieval studies fits into the history of cultural game theory, but also to demonstrate how the significance of the ludic function can generate future research on games in the Middle Ages.
Studies in the Literary Imagination, Mar 22, 2003
Although ethical memory is vital to Christine de Pizan's rhetorical agenda, the fact that it ... more Although ethical memory is vital to Christine de Pizan's rhetorical agenda, the fact that it is deeply embedded within the text of Le Livre de la Cite des Dames (The Book of the City of Ladies) has been little explored. Since medieval rhetoric viewed memory as the path to ethical knowledge and wisdom, the individual memory had to be trained in order to be fully functional in ethical pursuits. So Christine fashions an artificial memory system within the text that provides a means for women to develop an ethical memory practice, thereby disproving the anti-feminist tradition of women's vice and inconstancy. As she builds a pro-feminist history of "Woman" in the Cite by revising the anti-feminist tradition, Christine concomitantly instructs her female audience in the ways they can remember and practice this new history. Ultimately, this architectural system organizes a memorial space into a haven for the memories of her female readers, the new citizens of Christine's visionary citadel. By 1405, when she wrote Le Livre de la Cite des Dames, Christine de Pizan was already an active participant in the enduring literary and philosophical debate over the nature of "Woman." (1) Throughout its period of influence, this debate functioned as an intellectual literary game, a means by which individual writers could demonstrate their rhetorical skills and bolster their authority. The highly rhetorical nature of the debate's intellectual game was marked by its rigidly fixed, symbiotic structure of anti-feminist blame and pro-feminist praise in which each side brought into play the same rhetorical conventions and sources to make its particular case. (2) The debate's dialectical structure also required that pro-feminist authors counterargue anti-feminist polemic in addition to constructing a pro-feminist case. Christine maintained that the debate was detrimental to women not because their natures were inherently inconstant and unstable, as the anti-feminist side posited, but, rather, because women were uneducated in the rules of the game: without rhetorical training, women were unable to defend themselves against anti-feminist charges of inconstancy, imprudence, and vice, and still less able to construct a positive pro-feminist definition of, and for, themselves. In the Cite des Dames, Christine corrects this lack of rhetorical education by critiquing the anti-feminist tradition while also creating a rhetorical arena to house and preserve her pro-feminist case. The didactic agenda underlying her Cite requires not just rewriting and revising the anti-feminist case but also educating her female audience in this new vision, because, as she argues, "Dieu ... a donne a entedement de femme assez apprehenssive de toutes choses entendibles concevoir, congnoistre et retenir" (762; "God ... has granted that the mind of an intelligent woman can conceive, know and retain all perceptible things"; 86-87). (3) Her Cite demonstrates the scholarly refutation of the anti-feminist tradition by one such intelligent female reader as she creates a new, positive definition of "Woman," replacing the anti-feminist definition in the minds of her female readers. As she replaces the accepted anti-feminist definition of "Woman" in both literary tradition and in women's own lives and minds, Christine simultaneously provides a specific space to house this new memory practice. By presenting herself as a model female reader who counterargues the anti-feminist tradition through pro-feminist polemic and rhetorical mnemonics, Christine constructs a new reception practice in which she tutors her female readers. Christine's rendering of medieval female reception practice addresses contemporary critical concern as to how medieval women perceived the gender-based attacks emerging from the medieval debate. (4) In her responses to the "querelle de la Rose" (5) and in the Cite des Dames, Christine provides an example of gendered reception by a female medieval reader who had been trained in reading "as" a man. …
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Papers by Betsy McCormick