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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Female Masculinity In The Embodied Beowulf Wetlands: A New, Radical, Ecofeminist Approach, Teresa Pilgrim Jan 2022

Female Masculinity In The Embodied Beowulf Wetlands: A New, Radical, Ecofeminist Approach, Teresa Pilgrim

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

This article argues that the embodied characterization of Grendel’s mother offers us an alternative heroic model for women, from the titular hero, Beowulf, around whose heroic life and legacy the Old English poem is structured and more usually celebrated. In doing so, it addresses the problematic legacy of the heroic, masculinist poem and its pedagogical role as a canonical text for English literature and national identity which also informs our cultural attitudes to gender-based violence. This article examines female masculinity in the embodied Beowulf wetlands to recover an alternative, powerful, legacy for feminism. Grounded within previous feminist, queer, ecofeminist, and …


Medieval Futurity: Essays For The Future Of A Queer Medieval Studies, Will Rogers, Christopher Michael Roman Oct 2020

Medieval Futurity: Essays For The Future Of A Queer Medieval Studies, Will Rogers, Christopher Michael Roman

New Queer Medievalisms

This collection of essays asks contributors to take the capaciousness of the word "queer" to heart in order to think about what medieval queers would have looked like and how they may have existed on the margins and borders of dominant, normative sexuality and desire. The contributors work with recent trends in queer medieval studies, blending together modern concepts of sexuality and desire with the queer configurations of eroticism, desire, and materiality as they might have existed for medieval audiences.


Intersex And The Pardoner’S Body, Kim Zarins Jan 2018

Intersex And The Pardoner’S Body, Kim Zarins

Accessus

Most scholars today have retreated from reading into the Pardoner's body in favor of more figurative readings that emphasize his lack of masculinity, and such lack is then linked to his dejection and despair. Other, more affirming readings center the Pardoner's performance, which allows him to model any sort of body desired through figuration. While such positions dominate and older theories like Beryl Rowland's proposal of an intersex Pardoner are dismissed, in fact, an intersex reading might be a more life-affirming interpretation, not only in terms of reframing the Pardoner's body as manifesting variation as opposed to lack, but also …