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IMC 2003: Sessions

Session 1104: The Holy and the Unholy: Queer Approaches to Good and Evil in the Middle Ages

Wednesday 16 July 2003, 11.15-12.45

Sponsor:Queeries: An International Journal of Queer Studies
Organiser:Noreen Giffney, Women's Education, Research & Resource Centre, University College Dublin
Moderator/Chair:Sarah Salih, School of Literature & Creative Writing, University of East Anglia
Paper 1104-aChrist's Orificial Body and the Homodevotional Ga(y)ze in the Middle Ages
(Language: English)
Michael O'Rourke, Department of Modern English & American Literature, University College Dublin
Index terms: Gender Studies, Language and Literature - Middle English, Mentalities, Sexuality
Paper 1104-bOffending the Audience
(Language: English)
Garrett P. J. Epp, Department of English & Film Studies, University of Alberta, Edmonton
Index terms: Gender Studies, Language and Literature - Middle English, Performance Arts - Drama, Sexuality
Paper 1104-cThe Queerness of Antichrist: A Theoretical Examination of Evil in the Middle Ages
(Language: English)
Noreen Giffney, Women's Education, Research & Resource Centre, University College Dublin
Index terms: Gender Studies, Mentalities, Sexuality, Theology
Abstract

This session employs post-modern Queer Theory to interrogate pre-modern and modern representations of good and evil and, by extension, moral and immoral acts, identities, desires, and perceptions. Michael O'Rourke examines the Queer erotics and passionate desires which are attendant upon Christ's body from "The Dream of the Rood" to the morality plays to "Ancrene Wisse". Norren Griffney considers the body, genealogy, and uses of Antichrist in medieval apocalyptic discourse, while probing the links made between Antichrist and other outlawed groups. Focusing on the morality play "Mankind", Garrett Epp asks what it means, and what it might once have meant, to stage the medieval equivalent of 'in-yer-face' theatre.