"The Imagined Woman: The Phantasmic 'Woman' in the Middle Ages"In-Person Panel, sponsored by Magistra: A Journal of Women's Spirituality in History.Organized by Dr. Anne Crafton, Kristina Kummerer, and Dr. Macie Sweet.   Inspired partially by Judith Butler’s discussion of phantasmic “gender” in Who’s Afraid of Gender (2024), this panel highlights the imagined “Woman” as she appears in medieval writing, and assesses the impacts of these abstractions on “real” women’s lives. In medieval texts, the imagined “Woman” is a common trope used to personify abstract concepts - e.g., Philosophia - or phantasmatic threats to patriarchal power - e.g., the satirical mala femina. In this panel, we invite papers which explore the rhetorical “Woman” in all her forms and manifestations. How are these imagined “Women” connected to or disconnected from “real” women? How do medieval writers utilize “Womanliness” to explore concepts in abstraction? How do rhetorical “Women” impact the lived experiences of human women? How does the imagined “Woman" suggest or obscure medieval conceptions of gender performance, gender relations, or gendered hierarchy? We invite papers which examine representations of imagined "Women" in any genre, language, religion, or region. Papers may consider the imagined "Woman" in literature, liturgy, theology, philosophy, hagiography, historiography, etc. We do not wish to limit this panel to only studies of patriarchal or misogynistic representations of the rhetorical "Woman", but also invite papers which explore how medieval women themselves may or may not have utilized this trope as a rhetorical, philosophical, literary, or theological tool in their own writings. Submissions are due to the ICMS Confex site by September 15, 2025. Please address any questions to Kristina Kummerer (kkummere@nd.edu).