IMC 2026: Sessions

Critical neurodiversity studies and neuroqueer theory have recently come to prominence. These paradigms seek to explore differences in mind through an understanding that there are naturally diverse ways of being rather than through pathologisation. While they are beginning to be used in other academic disciplines, they are yet to be implemented in a significant way in medieval studies. This session encourages medievalists to see the potentials in neuroqueer and neurodivergent scholarship by examining how it can be applied to the both the literature and folklore of the middle ages and contemporary medievalism.

The first paper argues that Egill Skalla-Grímsson, a character often considered the archetypal ‘Viking’, can also be read as the archetype for neurodivergent medieval literary characters using coding to explore neurodivergence over a medieval life cycle. The second paper presents a neurodivergent reading of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight that foregrounds temporality and social perception as interlinked concerns within the poem. The final paper examines temporal confusion between the moralised stories in the Gesta Romanorum and biblical morals with an aim to explore medieval neurocognitive styles comfortable with following two narratives at once. This will further allow an investigation of the pathology of distraction.