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Sea of Silk - A Textile Geography of Women's Work in Medieval French Literature (Hardcover)
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Sea of Silk - A Textile Geography of Women's Work in Medieval French Literature (Hardcover)
Series: The Middle Ages Series
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Sea of Silk A Textile Geography of Women's Work in Medieval French
Literature E. Jane Burns "Burns shifts our focus from questions of
the consumption of silk to those of its production and circulation;
in so doing, she weaves a gendered history of the role this luxury
textile has played in the social and libidinal economy of cultural
exchange."--Sharon Kinoshita, University of California, Santa Cruz
The story of silk is an old and familiar one, a tale involving
mercantile travel and commercial exchange along the broad land mass
that connects ancient China to the west and extending eventually to
sites on the eastern Mediterranean and along sea routes to India.
But if we shift our focus from economic histories that chart the
exchange of silk along Asian and Mediterranean trade routes to
medieval literary depictions of silk, a strikingly different
picture comes into view. In Old French literary texts from the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, emphasis falls on production
rather than trade and on female protagonists who make, decorate,
and handle silk. "Sea of Silk" maps a textile geography of silk
work done by these fictional women. Situated in northern France and
across the medieval Mediterranean, from Saint-Denis to
Constantinople, from North Africa to Muslim Spain, and even from
the fantasy realm of Arthurian romance to the historical silkworks
of the Norman kings in Palermo, these medieval heroines provide
important glimpses of distant economic and cultural geographies. E.
Jane Burns argues, in brief, that literary portraits of medieval
heroines who produce and decorate silk cloth or otherwise
manipulate items of silk outline a metaphorical geography that
includes France as an important cultural player in the silk
economics of the Mediterranean. Within this literary sea of silk,
female protagonists who "work" silk in a variety of ways often
deploy it successfully as a social and cultural currency that
enables them to traverse religious and political barriers while
also crossing lines of gender and class. E. Jane Burns is Druscilla
French Distinguished Professor of Women's Studies at the University
of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is author of "Courtly Love
Undressed: Reading Through Clothes in Medieval French Culture" and
"Bodytalk: When Women Speak in Old French Literature," both also
available from the University of Pennsylvania Press. The Middle
Ages Series 2009 272 pages 6 x 9 25 illus. ISBN 978-0-8122-4154-9
Cloth $59.95s 39.00 World Rights Literature, Women's/Gender Studies
Short copy: E. Jane Burns argues that literary portraits of
medieval heroines who produce and decorate silk cloth or otherwise
manipulate items of silk outline a metaphorical geography that
includes northern France as an important cultural player within the
silk economics of the Mediterranean.
General
Imprint: |
University of PennsylvaniaPress
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Series: |
The Middle Ages Series |
Release date: |
May 2009 |
First published: |
2009 |
Authors: |
E. Jane Burns
|
Dimensions: |
229 x 152 x 25mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Hardcover
|
Pages: |
272 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-8122-4154-9 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
0-8122-4154-1 |
Barcode: |
9780812241549 |
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