Beginning this week through March 2000, four scholars will discuss interdisciplinary, feminist perspectives on history in the Visiting Scholars Program in Gender and History Lecture Series, now in its second year.

Judith Bennett, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will give the opening lecture, Preparing Maidens to Be Wives: Singlewomen in Late Medieval English Songs, Monday, October 4, at 4 p.m. in the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center.

Bennett will explore how ballads and songs in late medieval England affected the behavior of young women.

Blanca Silvestrini, a professor of history who is coordinator of the series this year, says the lectures aim to bring "avant-garde research on gender history" to campus. She says the series "identifies historians who take a broader, interdisciplinary approach."

The series encourages faculty and students to contribute interdepartmen tal perspectives and promotes discussion about gender issues.

Judith Bennett has published books about women and gender in medieval England, such as Women's Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600 and Women in the Medieval English Countryside: Gender and Household in Brigstock Before the Plague.

Recognition for her achievements in the field includes the Otto Grundler Prize in Medieval Studies.

Marisha Chinsky