• 2010 – 2015 studied history and German for teaching qualification (L3) at the University of Kassel; final thesis “ ‘mein liebe mueter’ – Concepts of Roles in Late Medieval Autobiographies”
  • 2012 – 2015 worked as student assistant
  • 2013 – 2016 tutor in the Department of Medieval History
  • 2014 – 2016 tutor in the Department of Didactics of Literature
  • since 2016 doctoral candidate in the Department of Medieval History, University of Kassel
  • 2016 – 2018 research assistant and contract lecturer in medieval history, University of Kassel
  • 2016 – 2018 doctoral scholarship, University of Kassel
  • since October 2018 research associate in the Department of Medieval History, University of Kassel

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“Motherhood in the Late Middle Ages. Normative Concepts and Narrative Construction”

(working title)

The dissertation project examines the emergence of normative concepts of motherhood and their effects on the narratives of mother-child relationships in the late Middle Ages. Here motherhood is understood as a social role and a historical construction, in the context of which ideas about a ‘good mother’ are continually redefined, depending on time and space. The aim is to critically interrogate a paradigm that appeared in the 1980s and has been repeatedly reproduced right up to the present day: the notion that motherly love was an unknown concept in the Middle Ages. The study concentrates on the urban societies of the late Middle Ages, so as to incorporate the effects of the plague, the development of new urban ways of life and economic systems, and the emergence of new argumentative strategies in humanism. Various source genres are used to examine motherhood, taking into account social and cultural conditions. The first source is tracts on educational theory and medicine, which are normative in character and thus give insight into prescribed patterns of behaviour and role expectations. These are used to investigate how certain concepts and narratives of motherhood came into being, and how these were shaped and handed down. The second source is self-testimonies, a genre in which motherhood is explicitly examined and reflected on. This framework makes it possible to determine how and when a change in family relationships took place, and to what extent this was influenced by new pedagogical ideas.

Editorship

Essays

  • Das Idealbild einer guten Mutter. Verborgenes Wissen in der Chronik Burkhard Zinks, in: Geheimnis und Verborgenes im Mittelalter. Funktion, Wirkung und Spannungsfelder von okkultem Wissen, verborgenen Räumen und magischen Gegenständen, hrsg. v. Stephan Conermann, Harald Wolter-von dem Knesebeck und Miriam Quierin (Das Mittelalter. Perspektiven mediävistischer Forschung. Beihefte 15), Berlin/Boston 2021, S. 549-565.

Reviews

  • Doing Parenthood. Eltern-Kind-Netzwerke in spätmittelalterlichen Selbstzeugnissen; Neues aus dem Mittelalter – Kolloquium zur Mittelalterlichen Geschichte, Universität Kassel, 29.05.2019.
  • Mutterschaft im Spätmittelalter. Normative Konzepte und narrative Konstruktion; Kolloquium zur Mittelalterlichen Geschichte, Universität Erfurt, 30.01.2018.
  • „mein liebe mueter“– Das geheimnisvolle Idealbild einer guten Mutter in spätmittelalterlichen Autobiographien; 17. Symposium des Mediävistenverbandes: „Geheimnis und Verborgenes im Mittelalter“, Bonn, 19.-22.03.2017.
  • „mein liebe mueter“ – Rollenvorstellungen in spätmittelalterlichen Autobiographien; Vortragsreihe „800 Jahre Frauenbilder in Bad Emstal“, Bad Emstal, 25.10.2016.
  • Mutterschaft in spätmittelalterlichen Autobiographien; Neues aus dem Mittelalter – Kolloquium zur Mittelalterlichen Geschichte, Universität Kassel, 28.01.2015.