I'm collecting sources so that I can write a historiographic paper on how Hildegard of Bingen has been studied--as you may have guessed I have been assigned this task, and as such I do not know much at all about Hildegard. I was hoping some of you could point me in the right direction.
The only book I've managed to get my hands on so far is Hildegard: A Visionary Life by Sabina Flanagan as well as a few chapters out of Meanings of Sex Differences in the Middle Ages by Joan Cadden. I would prefer to read English but I can tackle any German language books so long as they're juicy.
Oh boy. Yeah.
Flanagan's biography is solid, but we've discovered new sources since she wrote it, evaluated and reevaluated those sources, and our understanding of Hildegard's childhood in particular is somewhat different now. I think that's covered in the biography chapter of Voice of the Living Light, but I'm not entirely sure, sorry.
The study of Hildegard is really compartmentalized--and a lot of scholars, theologians, and scientists have approached her with an Agenda. You'll have a lot of fun picking that apart! Hopefully these will get you started, and especially their bibliographies:
The essays in Barbara Newman, ed., Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World
Bevery Kienzle et al., eds., A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen (Brill 2013)
Look up lines of individual scholarship and, well, other approaches from specific authors. It's generally developed through multiple articles and occasionally books. Some authors to check out: Barbara Newman, Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, John Van Engen, Alfred Haverkamp, Margot Fassler, Michael Embach, Peter Dronke, Hans Liebeschütz, Beverly Kienzle, Lina Eckenstein, Charles Singer, Oliver Sacks, Matthew Fox, maybe Heinrich Schipperges
Not all of these are "modern" or "scholarly," but they hit many of the important ways Hildegard has been used long after her life.
If you're going to read Hildegard in translation, which you should, you should pick up the Classics of Western Spirituality translation of Scivias or the translation of her letters by Joseph Baird. The Penguin Classics anthology Selected Writings: Hildegard of Bingen is not terrible, either--it doesn't have as much of an agenda as many translations of her work.
If you have more specific questions now or develop them as your project progresses, feel free to PM me. I think Hildegard is just terrific. :)
Penguin Publishing has a collection of her writings that's really great. With a very informative introduction.