IMC 2022: Sessions
Session 632: Crossing Lines?: Manifestations of Blurred Gender Boundaries in Medieval Culture
Tuesday 5 July 2022, 11.15-12.45
| Sponsor: | Network for Medieval Arts & Rituals (NetMAR) |
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| Organiser: | Ingrid Bennewitz, Lehrstuhl für Deutsche Philologie des Mittelalters, Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg |
| Moderator/Chair: | Ingrid Bennewitz, Lehrstuhl für Deutsche Philologie des Mittelalters, Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg |
| Paper 632-a | Guarding and Crossing the Boundaries between the Sacred and the Profane: Priests and Eunuchs as 'boundless servants' in Medieval Europe, Byzantium, and the Islamic World (Language: English) Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Gender Studies, Religious Life |
| Paper 632-b | Exploring Isalde's Space: Gender Boundaries in Eilhart's Tristrant (Language: English) Index terms: Gender Studies, Language and Literature - German, Manuscripts and Palaeography |
| Paper 632-c | Courting the King's Son: Strategies of Feminisation in Rudolf von Ems' Barlaam (Language: English) Index terms: Gender Studies, Hagiography, Language and Literature - German |
| Abstract | In medieval cultures gender boundaries are not only subject to rules different from modern Western societies; in certain contexts (religion, courtly love), they are also much more fluid than one would generally assume. This is not only evident in literary products, which, as expected, offer greater scope for the negotiation of gender roles, as an examination of both the male and female main characters of such diverse texts as Rudolf von Ems' Barlaam and Eilhart von Oberge's Tristrant reveals. With celibate priests and eunuchs medieval societies arguably have also developed groups of elites that can - by a certain degree - be characterised by a non-binary gender status. The session sponsored by the EU Horizon 2020 project 'NetMAR - Network of Medieval Arts and Rituals' aims to explore these different cultural manifestations of medieval transgressions of gender boundaries. |