Cole, a fan of Met galas, said she’d seen Zendaya in the Joan of Arc dress by Versace, an Italian designer and businesswoman, and “had already fallen in love with it” before the course began. “It’s gorgeous, it’s incredible,” she said, “and it gave me an excuse to talk about Joan of Arc, who was called a heretic for claiming to speak for God, but became a Catholic saint.”
“I know Joan of Arc would have worn something more masculine, but Versace was confounding gender roles and bringing Joan back in armor — pretty armor with hip plating and a long, flowy chain mail dress,” said Cole. “She was using Joan as a symbol to criticize a church that doesn’t have a place for women a lot of the time and can be abusive to women and children.”
In addition to footage from the exhibit, Cole’s video, “She is Clothed in Strength and Dignity: Joan of Arc at the Met,” included scenes from the 1928 French silent film “The Passion of Joan of Arc.”
An upside of last week’s virtual conference for the Medieval Academy of America is that it was open to all, said Miller, not just to those who registered, and as a result, it exposed more people to the presenters’ work. With its webinars that were livestreamed both days, the gathering also could be a financially sustainable model for intellectual exchanges that require attendees to travel long distances, she added.
The downside was that, because of COVID-19, the number of presenters dropped because “all academics are overwhelmed with the demands of their own institutions as we go to remote instruction,” said Miller.
Despite the 2019-2020 school year’s challenges, Miller said her students “continue to be the brightest spot in my life, and that seminar was the best teaching experience in my whole career.”
Su’s and Cole’s essays, which informed their videos, soon will be published, along with those of their seminar classmates, in Clio’s Scroll, Berkeley’s undergraduate history journal.
More Articles
- Women's Labor Force Exits During COVID-19: Differences by Motherhood, Race, and Ethnicity
- GAO Report On Air Travel and Communicable Diseases: Federal Leadership Needed to Advance Research
- Why Some Cities Lost Population in 2021: One Specific Group — Younger Adults in Their Early 20s to Mid-30s
- Justice Department Secures Agreement with CVS Pharmacy, Inc. to Make Online COVID-19 Vaccine Registration Accessible for People with Disabilities
- GAO* Report, Cybersecurity: National Institutes of Health Needs to Take Further Actions to Resolve Control Deficiencies and Improve Its Program
- Journalist's Resource: Religious Exemptions and Required Vaccines; Examining the Research
- Testimony of Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs: "The debt ceiling has been raised or suspended 78 times since 1960"
- Jo Freeman's Review of "Frankly, We Did Win This Election" By Michael C. Bender
- Researchers From Yale University, Stanford Medical School, University of California, Berkeley: Largest Study of Its Kind Finds Face Masks Reduce COVID-19
- The White House Says Boosters for All: Here’s What You Need to Know: “Stick to the advice from the CDC and the FDA, because they are doing their very best to ensure maximum protection and safety”