Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 55 (previously 22d) - Queer Women’s Communities and Meeting Places - transcript
(Originally aired 2018/05/26 - listen here)
Queer Women’s Communities and Meeting Places
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 55 (previously 22d) - Queer Women’s Communities and Meeting Places - transcript
(Originally aired 2018/05/26 - listen here)
Queer Women’s Communities and Meeting Places
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 56 (previously 23a) - On the Shelf for June 2018 - Transcript
(Originally aired 2018/06/02 - listen here)
The field of medieval "queer studies" has included a fascination with possible erotic and sexual interpretations of religious imagery and language. Some of the interpretations, I confess, have always felt a bit far-fetched to me. But here we look at the writings of one particular religious woman, Hadewijch of Brabant, whose language is undeniably erotic and passionate, addressing the image of "Lady Minne", whose name reflects erotic rather than platonic love.
There is an unexamined thread in the inclusion of cross-dressing as one of the continuing motifs in the material I cover for the Project. As I've discussed on several occasions, I've included studies on cross-dressing in history and literature both because it provided a context in western literature for the experience or recognition of same-sex attraction, and because it is a popular theme in modern lesbian historical fiction (so it's useful to understand the phenomenon in the historical context).
(Originally aired 2018/06/16 - listen here)
Heather Rose Jones: This week, Lise MacTague has returned to Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast to talk with us about some stories with queer women in historic settings that she has particularly enjoyed.
(Originally aired 2018/06/09 - listen here)
In following up on references to gender transgression in medieval Arabic literature, I’ve been struck by the way certain motifs align differently from what we see in the literature of Christian cultures. In European romances, “Amazonian” characters who dress and act as men are often a context for accidental homoeroticism. Cross-dressing in general also provides this opportunity.
(Originally aired 2018/05/19 - listen here)
(Originally aired 2018/05/12 - listen here)
As I note below, I originally picked this up because I thought it would cover all types of cross-dressing in the context of chivalric romances and tournaments. But even though it's restricted to contexts where men perform femininity in a public context, it's still quite relevant to understanding medieval attitudes toward gender crossing and gender performance. In particular, it's a strong reminder that men and women lived in entirely different universes with regard to how cross-gender performance and gender transgression were received.