Amira Korkor

Through my research this semester, I am attempting to better understand the body image of a medieval female viewer, namely Catherine of Cleves.  I think that it will prove worthwhile and informative to study Catherine’s surroundings to get a better understanding of the ways that she would have perceived herself and her body, and more specifically the portrayal of her body in the Book of Hours made at her request in 1400.  I will focus on two specific images in the book of hours; the double intercession and the hell mouth.  Through examination of outside research and primary texts, I would like to show that in medieval society, like our own, cultural and societal discourses were always at odds with themselves.  I want to explore some of these contradictions and perhaps shed light on some issues Catherine of Cleves may have grappled with, especially those concerning sex and the function of the medieval body. With a general awareness of the greater environment and conceptions that would have shaped her body image, the images of her body in the manuscript and the significance of the Virgin and Hell Mouth images should make more sense.

The main concepts that I focus on are gender (as defined by societal constructs), sex (being the biological counterpart to gender), sexuality and the expectations versus the norms of sexual behavior, and other common medieval imagery.  My research integrates original medical and religious texts, as well as the book of hours itself and contemporary research sources.