Using Feminist Pedagogy to Explore Connectivity in the Medieval Mediterranean

Abstract

Feminism and Mediterranean studies intersect in some surprising ways, especially in the classroom, despite assumptions about the region’s tendency toward misogyny.¹ The empathetic search for comprehension across boundaries of difference motivates both disciplines, and the generous nod toward intersectionality structures teaching and research in both domains. Yet, while I suspect many teachers approach the classroom in ways that are consonant with these tenets, few have combined these fields to theorize a pedagogical approach, one born of concern for understanding connections between cultures by fostering connections within the classroom. Working in medieval and Mediterranean studies—both sites of connections and fields in which one can hardly master everything, from geographic, linguistic, and cultural diasporas to the thousand years of history that constitute our time period—has led me to seek a pedagogy that invites us to leverage our collective reading skills to better understand a period and place rich in intersections but relatively poor in sources, one divided into falsely nationalized disciplinary frameworks by its nineteenth-century forefathers.²

Keywords

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