IMC 2017: Sessions

Session 1720: Hagiography beyond Gender Essentialism, II: Identity, Otherness, and Authenticity

Thursday 6 July 2017, 14.15-15.45

Sponsor:	Hagiography Society
Organiser:	Alicia Spencer-Hall, Institute of Advanced Studies, University College London
Moderator/Chair:	Alicia Spencer-Hall, Institute of Advanced Studies, University College London
Respondent:	Mathilde van Dijk, Faculteit der Godgeleerdheid en Godsdienstwetenschap, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
Paper 1720-a	Disidentification and Queer Futurity in Capgrave's Life of Saint Katherine (Language: English) Caitlyn McLoughlin, Department of English, Ohio State University Index terms: Gender Studies, Hagiography, Religious Life, Sexuality
Paper 1720-b	Gender Liminality in the Life and Sermons of Mother Juana de la Cruz (Language: English) Kevin C. A. Elphick, Women in the Franciscan Intellectual Tradition Network, New York Index terms: Gender Studies, Hagiography, Religious Life, Sermons and Preaching
Paper 1720-c	Non-Standard Masculinity and Sainthood in Niketas David's Life of Patriarch Ignatios (Language: English) Felix Szabo, Department of History, University of Chicago, Illinois Index terms: Gender Studies, Hagiography, Religious Life, Sexuality
Abstract	Hagiography is all too often assumed to be a place where gender essentialism festers, complete with claustrophobic gender roles. However, numerous scholars, such as Caroline Walker Bynum and Leslie Feinberg, have shown that saints routinely challenged the options offered to them by the gender binary. Saints could, and did, cross-dress; live as a gender other to which they were assigned at birth; and modulate their identity by blending traits traditionally coded as male and female. This panel continues the discussions raised in its sister panel (Hagiography Beyond Gender Essentialism, I), examining the ways in which particular hagiographic texts situate saints in terms of trans/genderqueer identity, spiritual authenticity, and 'otherness'.