Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography
Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography
edited by Alicia Spencer-Hall and Blake Gutt by Alicia Spencer-Hall
Amsterdam University Press, 2021 eISBN: 978-90-485-4026-6
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography presents an interdisciplinary examination of trans and genderqueer subjects in medieval hagiography. Scholarship has productively combined analysis of medieval literary texts with modern queer theory – yet, too often, questions of gender are explored almost exclusively through a prism of sexuality, rather than gender identity. This volume moves beyond such limitations, foregrounding the richness of hagiography as a genre integrally resistant to limiting binaristic categories, including rigid gender binaries. The collection showcases scholarship by emerging trans and genderqueer authors, as well as the work of established researchers. Working at the vanguard of historical trans studies, these scholars demonstrate the vital and vitally political nature of their work as medievalists. Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography enables the re-creation of a lineage linking modern trans and genderqueer individuals to their medieval ancestors, providing models of queer identity where much scholarship has insisted there were none, and re-establishing the place of non-normative gender in history.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Alicia Spencer-Hall is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at Queen Mary University of London (UK). Her research interests include medieval hagiography, disability, gender, digital culture, and film and media studies.
Blake Gutt is a postdoctoral scholar with the Michigan Society of Fellows (University of Michigan, USA). He specializes in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century French, Occitan and Catalan literature, and modern queer and trans theory.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
IList of Figures
Acknowledgements
'Introduction', Alicia Spencer-Hall and Blake Gutt
Following the Traces: Reassessing the Status Quo, Reinscribing Trans and Genderqueer Realities
1.'Assigned Female at Death: Joseph of Schönau and the Disruption of Medieval Gender Binaries', Martha G. Newman
2.'Inherited Futures: Capgrave's Life of St Katherine', Caitlyn McLoughlin
3.'Juana de la Cruz: Gender-Transcendent Prophetess', Kevin C.A. Elphick
4.'Non-Standard Masculinity and Sainthood in Niketas David's Life of Patriarch Ignatios', Felix Szabo
Peripheral Vision(s): Objects, Images, and Identities
5.'Gender-Querying Christ's Wounds: A Non-Binary Interpretation of Christ's Body in Late Medieval Imagery', Sophie Sexon
6.'Illuminating Queer Gender Identity in the Manuscripts of the Vie de sainte Eufrosine', Vanessa Wright
7.'The Queerly Departed: Narratives of Veneration in the Burials of Late Iron Age Scandinavia', Lee Colwill
Genre, Gender, and Trans Textualities
8.'St Eufrosine's Invitation to Gender Transgression', Amy V. Ogden
9.'Holy Queer and Holy Cure: Sanctity, Disability, and Transgender Embodiment in Tristan de Nanteuil', Blake Gutt
10.'The Authentic Lives of Transgender Saints: imago Dei and imitatio Christi in the Life of Saint Marinos the Monk', M.W. Bychowski
Epilogue: 'Beyond Binaries: The (Trans) Gender(s) of Saints', Mathilde van Dijk
Appendix: 'Trans and Genderqueer Studies Terminology, Language, and Usage Guide'