Constructing and Locating Women Warriors in Medieval Eurasia (proposal due 9/15/2011)

47th International Medieval Congress
Kalamazoo, Michigan
May 10-13, 2012

The construction and historicization of the Amazonian type women warriors have generated a long legacy in both Western and Eastern cultures.The ancient world’s literary impulse to construct and the geographical impulse to locate the women warriors and women's kingdoms continued in the Middle Ages. Examples can be found in the writings of Boccaccio, Chaucer, De Pizan, and travel writings of Mandeville and Marco Polo. In the East, “women’s kingdom” continued to evolve in Chinese literature and historiography.

We invite papers that explore the appropriation and transformation of these cultural impulses of constructing and locating the women warriors in medieval Eurasia.