Course Description
Queer theory tends to focus on modern texts, perhaps because of the philosopher Michel Foucault’s (in)famous declaration that in the West, ‘homosexuality’, as an identity, is a nineteenth-century invention. If we accept Foucault’s premise, then what might queerness look like in the long medieval period, before the emergence of this form of identity? In this seminar, we will discover that sexuality in the premodern period is an unstable concept, which most often emerges as it intersects in unexpected ways with other categories, including racial, national, religious, class, and gender identities.
We will make this discovery by reading a variety of texts dating from the tenth to fifteenth centuries that crisscross genres, in prose or poetry, including Hrotsvit of Gandersheim’s version of St. Pelagius martyrdom, the thirteenth-century romance Silence, portions of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, and The Book of Margery Kempe for example. By studying a wide range of literary texts, we will see that ‘queering’ texts can serve as a deconstructive tool, enriching our understanding of early literature. In turn, depictions of premodern sexualities challenge us to reexamine some of our own, along with queer theory and gender studies’, assumptions about sexuality, gender, and history.
Book List (They are available at the campus book store or you can secure them online.)
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. Jill Mann, ed. New York: Penguin Classics, 2005.
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality. Volume One: An Introduction. Robert Hurley, trans. New York: Vintage, 1978.
Cleanness. Kevin Gustafson, editor and translator. Ontario: Broadview Press, 2010.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. James Winny, editor and translator. Ontario: Broadview Press, 1995.
Silence: A Thirteenth-Century French Romance. Sarah Roche-Madhi, ed. and trans. Michigan: Michigan University Press, 1999.
Bale, Anthony trans. The Book of Margery Kempe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Student Learning Outcomes:
In this course, students will:
- Practice reading texts critically and appreciate how genre shapes content
- Acquire an understanding of the history of sexuality and queer theory
- Strengthen their knowledge of the Middle Ages as a literary and historical period
- Gain an understanding of literature’s potential and limits as a source for cultural history
- Improve their skills in incorporating and documenting secondary scholarship when crafting an argumentative essay
Assessment:
Attendance/Participation 10%
Response Paper 1 (700 words) 15%
Clog Responses (5 x 50 words) 10%
Wikipedia Project (1200 words) 30%
Short Research Essay (1500 words) 35%