Pre and Early Modern Trans Studies Symposium

This conference brings together scholars working at the intersections between the fields of trans studies, medieval studies, and early modern literary studies. While the projects of historicizing trans studies and queering premodern and early modern studies are ongoing, it is surprising that there has thus far been relatively little engagement with trans studies by scholars working on ancient, medieval, and early modern literature and history, especially given our field’s long genealogy of feminist and queer approaches. With this conference, we ask: what, if anything, makes the ancient, medieval, and early modern period rich for trans studies? What does trans studies bring to the medieval/early modern and what, in return, can medieval/early modern studies bring to trans theory and analysis? How does this approach align with earlier feminist inquiries about gender and with the project of “queering the medieval,” or “queering the Renaissance,” and where does it require new pathways? What pedagogical opportunities open up from bringing the vocabulary of trans studies to earlier periods?