Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski received her PhD in Romance Language and Literatures at Princeton University. As a specialist in medieval French literature, she has varied research interests: Renate studied the history of Caesarean birth for Not of Woman Born (1990); she has worked on saints lives and particularly on holy women in the later middle ages. Currently, she is interested in the literature surrounding the Great Schism of the Western Church (1378 - 1417). Other major areas of interest are the role the classical heritage plays in medieval culture (a topic investigated in Reading Myth [1997] and many articles) and Christine de Pizan (1364-1431), the first professional woman writer in Europe.