Descrizione del progetto
Fare luce sull’istruzione delle ragazze medievali
L’alfabetizzazione delle donne è una questione vitale, considerata a lungo dagli storici moderni come qualcosa di eccezionale durante il Medioevo. Tuttavia, studi recenti sulla letteratura di questo periodo hanno puntato i riflettori sull’istruzione delle ragazze. In questo contesto, il progetto ActiLit, finanziato dall’UE, si concentrerà sul concetto di alfabetizzazione pratica (capacità di leggere, scrivere e contare per scopi pratici) alla fine del Medioevo (1350-1500). Effettuerà inoltre ricerche sulle pratiche e sul ruolo delle donne nella trasmissione di queste competenze. ActiLit porterà spunti completamente nuovi sul ruolo in materia di istruzione di madri e monache nei monasteri.
Obiettivo
Project ACTILIT will focus on female literacy and female literate education at the end of Middle Ages (1350-1500). The ER will adopt a new historiographical approach centered on - a crucial element for the improvement of personal agency - the concept of practical literacy, i.e. one’s abilities to read, write and count in every-day life for practical purposes. ACTILIT will also renew our vision of the role of women in the transmission of literate skills, by highlighting the importance of the role of mothers as first teachers of their children, and nuns’ monasteries as centers of education for both religious and lay girls. Based on the analysis of different sets of documentation written by women (nuns’ archival fonds and corpora of letters), ACTILIT will bring into light (1) the main characteristics of female practical writing (script, accounting techniques, purposes of female practical writings) and the diffusion of such skills among women in a specific society (Tuscany); (2) the knowledge transmissions chains (from mother to daughters, nuns to lay women) and the content of the gendered literacy that was taught to girls; (3) the differences in female practical literacy (formal characteristics, use, extent in society) in different European regions, thanks to the comparison between sets of documents from Tuscany and Germany, that will serve as a foundation for a broader study, at a European level, on women’s capacity to write and count in the pre-modern period. ACTILIT will thus radically change our perception of the relationship between women and literacy in past times.
Campo scientifico
Parole chiave
Programma(i)
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinatore
40225 Dusseldorf
Germania