Received Medievalisms A Cognitive Geography of Viennese Womens Convents [Paperback]

This study examines the post-medieval reception of Vienna's women's monastic institutions. Through analysis of the physical and historical place such women's institutions held in an important urban and political center, this book provides a new picture of the ways in which the medieval shapes later understandings of women's role and agency.1. Setting the Stage 2. Mine's Taller: On Steeple Distortions in City Depictions 3. Mental Topography and the Viennese Medieval Past 4. Foundation Stories: The Heroes of Viennese Monasticism 5. Virgin Intercessor and Other Monastic Miracles 6. The Persistence of the Medieval Appendix 1: Views of Vienna: Selected Panoramas, Plans, and Pictorial Reports Appendix 2: Vienna in Prose: Selected Histories, Topographies, and Travelogues

Received Medievalisms is a remarkable book - remarkable in its temporal and disciplinary scope, remarkable in its creative methodological approach, and remarkable in its fascinating arguments. Cynthia J. Cyrus brings to bear a serious depth of learning and an astute, deft critical sensibility in demonstrating the significance of women's convents, and of the versions of the Middle Ages they carry with them, in Viennese culture from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries. - Nancy Bradley Warren, Professor and Head, Department of English, Texas A&M University

Cynthia Cyrus is Professor of Musicology and affiliated faculty in Women s and Gender studies at Vanderbilt University, USA, where she also serves as Associate Provost for undergraduate education.