Queer Histories of the Middle Ages

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

Welcome to Queer Histories of the Middle Ages. This semester we will be learning about how queer medieval people and communities have been studied by historians while also learning about the people and communities themselves. Throughout the course, we will center material and scholarship that is historical in scope. By this, I mean that the class concentrates on historical lived experiences of non-normative gender and sexuality as documented in scientific, legal, religious, institutional, and personal writing from approximately 500-1500 AD. The geographic focus will vary throughout the course, with most readings dealing with different regions of the Mediterranean and Europe. Our focus throughout this course will shift regionally and temporally to follow the existing scholarship while cohering around loosely organized themes, discussing trends in historiography (history writing) alongside the content of that history writing. As a class, we will work together to trace the threads of cultural continuity and discontinuity in the medieval past while attending to patterns of scholarship in the recent past and our own perspectives in the present. This course is designed to provide an introduction to different approaches to writing queer histories of the medieval world. You do not need to have any previous knowledge of the period, although it may prove helpful. The readings will provide you with the necessary information relevant to the specific subject. We will further clarify complex ideas through discussion. By the same token, although a familiarity with modern queer theory may be helpful, students should not feel that they need any formal background in theories of gender or sexuality. We will find what we need as we go.