Undergraduate Course: Women at Work: Gender, Labour, and Creativity in Premodern European Art (HIAR10216)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh College of Art |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course is about women who worked in Premodern Europe from artists to midwives; authors to sex workers. It critically considers how certain forms of bodily labour and creative practice become gendered as 'women's work' We will study both the representation of women labouring in art and the ways medieval women asserted their authorship and authority when at work. This course addresses a diversity of mediums across art, visual and material culture including manuscript illumination, mixed-media sculpture and textiles. |
| Course description |
How do we write feminist histories of premodern European art and artistic labour? This course explores the relationship between gender and labour, between artistic practice and bodily autonomy before modernity. We will consider how gender was constructed in the Middle Ages and the ways scholarship has, in turn, gendered different mediums of art. We will learn about both individual named women who worked in their respective fields as well as matriarchal communities of collective creative practice. Alongside studying what women made from textiles to illuminated manuscripts, we will look at the representation of women labouring across diverse professions. In this queer and trans-inclusive course, we will explore a variety of current approaches to writing histories of gender and labour, while also reading a range of primary sources authored by women among them legal records; philosophy, medical and mystical texts.
This course is taught through ten weekly two-hour seminars. Students will gain familiarity with gender studies and feminist methodology alongside close attention to object-based training in visual and material analysis, featuring local collections. Students will pursue independent research projects related to course content, learning to apply feminist and gender studies methodology to historically situated artworks. In recognition of feminist and queer traditions of grassroots organising, gender-inclusive cultural history and education-based activism, students will create their own public art history zines related to their academic research essay.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
| Additional Costs | This Course does not require any additional costs to be met by the Student.
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Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2025/26, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
| Course Start Date |
13/01/2026 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 10,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 9,
External Visit Hours 1,
Feedback/Feedforward Hours 1,
Summative Assessment Hours 2,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
173 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
This course has 2 summative assessment components.
1. Public Education Art History Zine, 1,500-words, 40% due in Weeks 8-10. The Zine relates to Learning Outcomes 1-5.
2. Essay, 2,000-words, 50%, due in exam period. The Essay relates to Learning Outcomes 1-5.
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| Feedback |
FORMATIVE FEEDBACK:
Students have two opportunities for formative feedback in this course. Each of these opportunities for ungraded feedback concretely aids in preparing students for their summative assessments.
1. An essay plan due in weeks 5-7. This essay plan gives students an opportunity for feedback on key building blocks for their final summative assessment such as their research question, primary visual evidence, and preliminary bibliography. Spoken feedback on the essay plan will be delivered in a one-on-one meeting with the course organizer within one week of submission.
2. Draft of zine in weeks 7-9 for peer-to-peer review. Students have the opportunity to reflect together on how their public education zines are communicating complex ideas from the course in an accessible manner before the final submission of their zines.
In addition, there will be opportunities for peer-to-peer feedback within seminar discussion of final essay projects.
SUMMATIVE FEEDBACK
Summative Feedback for both graded assessments will be delivered in writing by the course organiser.
Feedback on the first summative assessment will help students develop their skills of visual analysis. This specific skill is foundational for their second summative assessment.
Summative feedback will be provided according to University regulations.
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| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Critically situate histories of gendered labour within the historical context and across mediums of art.
- Analyse feminist methods within academic texts.
- Show how the history of representing women in art has shaped culturally situated ideas about labour and gender.
- Examine how primary and secondary texts gender different artistic mediums and labour in premodern contexts of production.
- Demonstrate knowledge in writing of how women describe their own creativity, contributions and labour in premodern primary sources.
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Reading List
Bailey, Merridee L., Tania M. Colwell, and Julie Hotchin, eds. Women and Work in Premodern Europe: Experiences, Relationships and Cultural Representation, c. 1100-1800. Routledge, 2018.
Green, Monica H., Gendering the History of Women's Healthcare, Gender and History, Twentieth Anniversary Special Issue, 20, no. 3 (November 2008), 487-518.
Hsy, Jonathan, Be more strange and bold: Kissing Lepers and Female Same-Sex Desire in The Book of Margery Kempe. Early Modern Women Journal (Fall 2010): 189-199.
Jackson, Eleanor, and Julian Harrison, eds. Medieval Women in Their Own Words. The British Library, 2024.
Joyner, Danielle B. Painting the Hortus Deliciarum: Medieval Women, Wisdom, and Time. Penn State University Press, 2016.
Wolfthal, Diane eds. Towards a Visual History of the Working Class, Special issue of Different Visions, New Perspectives on Medieval Art, 10, Summer, 2023. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Critical and Reflective thinking: By centring a specific methodological approach to writing about art, this course helps students develop criticality through analysing both primary and secondary sources. Writing assessments throughout the course invite reflection on how feminist methods have influenced how we study the past. Weekly seminar discussion of key artworks allows students practice putting critical tools of contemporary feminist analysis into action with diverse materials. This grows their confidence negotiating the tension between theoretical ideas and concrete case studies in the wider world.
Personal and intellectual autonomy: Formative and summative assessments help students build unique and independent research projects, culminating in their final essay and public education zine. These are opportunities to develop their own interventions for cultural and historical work grounded in gender inclusivity. Assessments across the course ask students to self-consciously articulate the methods they value and why with respect to approaching historical contexts different than their own.
Communication: By being asked to articulate what they are learning through both an academic essay and a public education zine (a nod to feminist traditions of grassroots education and political organising) students will practice communicating complex and nuanced ideas to a range of different audiences. Students become effective communicators by learning to match how they articulate ideas to the specific audience, medium and purpose of sharing knowledge. |
| Keywords | women,gender,feminism,medieval art,labour |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Jess Bailey
Tel:
Email: Jess.Bailey@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
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