Proposal:
comparative multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary study of Italian female monasteries between the 8th and the end of the 11th centuries
Approach:
study of Italian nunneries as a laboratory for exploring the complex relationship between GENDER and POWER in medieval Europe
Relevance:
understanding this relationship in the past allows one to have a better understanding of tensions between gender and power as mediated through religious politics, as we see them in 21th- century European societies