Students and staff at King's College London invite you to join a three-hour Medieval Feminist Wikipedia Edit-a-thon on Wednesday 28th March 2018, in person, or wherever you are in the world!
[Project update 8th Feb 2018] We planned to hold our wikithon on the 7th March, and publicise the fruits of our labour on International Womens' Day, 8th March. However, in support of the UCU pensions strike, we will host the wikithon on Wednesday 28th March. Find out more about the UCU strikes and how you can support them, here.
1. Sign up via Eventbrite - click here - to let us know you're coming (so that we make sure we have enough refreshments to go round, and, if you are not a King's ID card holder, we need to provide a list of names to security).
2. Add your Wikipedia username below, observing that the list is alphabetical by user name.
You can add your name by clicking the 'Signature and timestamp' icon in the editing toolbar, or just copy and paste four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date.
Wherever you are in the world, you can be a part of this #medievalwiki event. You don't have to just take part 2-5pm GMT on the 28th March. We invite you to make edits any time between 1-31 March. Add your username before, and sure to record your contribution at the bottom of this meetup page.
Please add your Wikipedia name below, observing that the list is alphabetical by user name.
You can add your name by clicking the 'Signature and timestamp' icon, or using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date.
Please do get together with friends and colleagues, staff and students, to run a sister branch of this wikithon at your workplace! Add your institution with usernames below.
You can add your name by clicking the 'Signature and timestamp' icon, or using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date.
Please add to the list below to suggest articles to edit/create. Once you've made any new pages or edits, please add your work to the 'outcomes' section below.
Sarah Salih, Versions of Virginity in Late Medieval England (D.S. Brewer, 2001)
Laura Varnam, ‘The crucifix, the Pietà, and the female mystic: Devotional objects and performative identity in The Book of Margery Kempe’. Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures 41 (2015): 208-237.
Laura Varnam, ‘The Importance of St Margaret's Church in 'The Book of Margery Kempe': A Sacred Place and an Exemplary Parishioner’. Nottingham Medieval Studies (2017)
Williams, Laura K. ""Slayn for Goddys lofe": Margery Kempe's Melancholia and the Bleeding of Tears." Medieval Feminist Forum 52.1 (2016): 84-100
Spencer-Hall, Alicia. Medieval Saints and Modern Screens: Divine Visions as Cinematic Experience. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018, pp. 165-92
Related work on the Caedmon article, with regards to historicity by Lees and Overing. they call the Caedmon story a 'patriarchal myth' p. 26.
Lees and Overing note that 'Caedmon is the so-called "father" of English poetry', and discuss that 'the elevation of an illiterate laborer Caedmon to divinely inspired poet (and almost saint) has acquired the quasimythological status of an originary narrative'.
Add content from primary sources to flesh out details of her life, plus can include a few citations of contemporary scholars.
Fiona J. Griffiths, 'Siblings and the Sexes Within the Medieval Religious Life' Church History 77.1 (2008), 26-53
Wiesje Nijenhuis, 'In a Class of Their Own, Anglo-Saxon Female Saints', Mediaevistik 14 (2001), 125-48
Walter de Gray Birch, Memorials of St Guthlac of Crowland (Wisbech: 1881)
Robin Norris, 'The Augustinian Theory of Use and Enjoyment in “Guthlac A” and “B”', Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 104.2 (2003), 159-178
Primary sources: Chronicon ex chronicis (1140); Felix’s Life of Saint Guthlac: Text, Translation and Notes, ed. Bertram Colgrave (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); MS. Dd. Xi. 78, University Library, Cambridge; Harley Roll Y6, Roundel 15, BL; Jane Roberts, The Guthlac Poems of the Exeter Book (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979)
To add section on translations and adaptations: Kevin Crossley-Holland, Michael Alexander, Paul Muldoon, Fiona Sampson, Vahni Capildeo, Burton Raffel, FEN, Hamish Clayton, Blood Axis, Kerry Carnahan,
Generally lacking in recent work by women across entire page. Update to include work by Marijane Osborne, Jane Chance, Stacy Klein, Marilynn Desmond, Christine Fell, Shari Horner, Helen Bennett.
General problems with structure, and update of interpretation sections
Articles to create or improve: Contemporary scholars and artists
Please add to the list below to suggest articles to edit/create. Once you've made any new pages or edits, please add your work to the 'outcomes' section below
Note that some of these women have well developed pages, but missing references to work in medieval studies or medievalism.
Please observe alphabetical by first name listing. Names that appear in red require pages created for them.
Articles to create or improve: Journals, Societies, and Significant Research Projects
Please add to the list below to suggest articles to edit/create. Once you've made any new pages or edits, please add your work to the 'outcomes' section below.
Information on history, committee, and the journal, 'Studies in the Age of Chaucer'.
Editing Tips and Resources
Not all scholars, artists, and writers will be considered 'notable' by the Wikipedia community. See these guides for what constitutes a notable academic, and on notability in general. Of course, some of the criteria serve as barriers especially for women and PoC, so it is up to us to pull together the citations and put our case forward! You might find that a page you create or edits you make are challenged, so be prepared to state your case (and ask for backup from fellow medievalwiki editors).
Add to our list of articles edited. Write your 'what you have edited - username'. Include as much detail as you can! Please share your work done across your preferred social media (using #medievalwiki)
Wherever you are in the world, if you make a change to Wikipedia between 1-30 March 2018, and boost the representation of medieval women, or their woman or non-binary modern readers, make sure you include your contribution below!
Edited List of artistic depictions of Beowulf to include reference to Meghan Purvis' translation and awards, the Unicorn Theatre produced one-woman 'Beowulf' which starred Debbie Korley, and to give reference to Marijane Osborn's list of Beowulf adaptations and translations published by ACMRS. Edited the The Seafarer (poem) with additional information regarding Caroline Bergvall's 'Drift' project Medievalfran (talk) 00:21, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
Edited Monica Green (historian) to include her recent win of CARA prize from Medieval Academy of America --Steida (talk) 13:14, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
Also edited Alice of Schaerbeek to include refs to manuscripts, more secondary refs, corrected biographical errors, inserted crossrefs to relevant wiki pages -- Steida
Edited Maureen Duffy adding information about Hilda and Virginia production at Jermyn Street Theatre in 2018, and image from wikimedia commons. Added reference to Duffy on Hilda_of_Whitby. Made some tweaks to Society_for_Medieval_Feminist_Scholarship, this work will be ongoing for some time (see my sandbox!) --Medievalfran (talk) 14:07, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
Edited Caroline Bergvall to reformat and clarify information already provided, to add information on her poem Drift and to add her performance at the KCL Arts and Humanities Festival 2017, and added photograph available on wikicommons --Cearleslasta (talk) 14:22, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
Edited Héloïse based on the French wikipedia page. Added section 5 'Influence on Literature'. Henryravenhall (talk) 15:13, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
Edited Caroline Walker Bynum to make minor clarifications, improve citations, and most importantly changed the article title to her full, and most commonly used, name. Cpotter419 (talk) 15:16, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
Edited Julian of Norwich to update the terms used referring to cited work, and added another image depicting the church she resided in. Delire-a98 (talk) 15:21, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
Edited Dream of the Rood to include a paragraph on the scholarship done on gender in the poem. All my sources were already cited in the article, but previous editors had avoided mentioning these interpretations (which was the central argument in one of those sources). --Mearainbow (talk) 15:26, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
Work in progress: finding sources which argue that Caedmon and his story is more myth than 'real figure', considering how he has a larger page, and more work attributed to him than Abbess Hilda User:Mearainbow
Edited Wulf and Eadwacer to include image of the Exeter Book, info box, and section on translations and adaptations. Also populated Wikidata. --Bethanymay (talk) 09:26, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
Thanks also to a whole host of other feminist and academic organisations around the world. We've collected together previous and ongoing projects that inspired us on our blog.
Bibliography for work-in-progress
These references might prove helpful for your article editing!
↑Lees, Clare A.; Overing, Gillian R. (2001). Double agents: women and clerical culture in Anglo-Saxon England. Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN0812236289.
↑Lees, Clare A.; Overing, Gillian R. (2001). Double agents: women and clerical culture in Anglo-Saxon England. Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press. p.11. ISBN0812236289.
