This event is co-sponsored by The Center for European Studies, Medieval Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies, Comparative Literature and Folklore Studies, the University Lectures Fund, and the Department of German, Nordic and Slavic.
Professor Hoefig’s research concentrates on literature and material culture in medieval Northern Europe, including themes of nationalism, collective memory, and identity. More recently she has focused on the material and textual artifacts of childbirth. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.
Part of the mandate of European Studies is to co-sponsor talks displaying emerging approaches in European research on the humanities. Hoefig’s work will address this mandate by examining medieval attitudes of gender and women’s medicine. Her discussion will be relevant to faculty, students, and the public who are interested in medieval Northern Europe, mythology, and medicine, and what they can tell us about gender and motherhood.