IMC 2020: Sessions

Session 148: It's a Queer Time: Trespassing the Boundaries of Chrononormativity, I - Bodies that Matter

Monday 6 July 2020, 11.15-12.45

Sponsor:	Institutt for lingvistiske, litterære og estetiske studier, Universitetet i Bergen
Organiser:	David Carrillo-Rangel, Institut de Recerca de Cultures Medievals (IRCVM), Universitat de Barcelona
Moderator/Chair:	Bryan C. Keene, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Paper 148-a	'Men wiste nevere wher she was bicome': The Queerness of Queen Heurodis (Language: English) Ruth Worgan, Centre for Medieval & Early Modern Research (MEMO) Swansea University Index terms: Gender Studies, Language and Literature - Middle English
Paper 148-b	Anchoritic Temporalities: Julian of Norwich and the AIDS Epidemic (Language: English) Caitlyn McLoughlin, Department of English, Ohio State University Index terms: Gender Studies, Language and Literature - Comparative, Language and Literature - Middle English
Paper 148-c	'Eternity Crossing the Current of Time': Anchoritic Prayer and Encounter with the Past (Language: English) Alicia Smith, Queen's College, University of Oxford Index terms: Gender Studies, Language and Literature - Middle English
Abstract	Chrononormativity is a term coined by Elizabeth Freeman to define 'the use of time to organize individual human bodies towards maximum productivity (…) through particular orchestrations of time. (…) Schedules, calendars, time zones' (2010: 3). We see this at work in parcelling of history through periodization and localization in given spaces. These become boundaries and barriers to a more fluid understanding of the Middle Ages. If the Middle Ages is 'age of the medium' (Jørgensen, 2015:9), both in regards to materialities and historical witness, it might mean that the period is also a queer time, in it its fluidity as well as in the way historiography articulates present (mis)conceptions of the past. This first session explores the importance of the body and bodily events like sickness or abductions in both time and space.