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Full-Text Articles in History
What's Medieval Got To Do With It?, Carolyn Dinshaw
What's Medieval Got To Do With It?, Carolyn Dinshaw
Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)
President Bush's response to September 11 — he has called this "war on terrorism" a "crusade" — is terrifying in its own right, framing the future as a reprise of the medieval past: several centuries of battle between Christianity and Islam. It's "going to take a while," Bush said. The White House may have subsequently backed off that rhetoric, but the metaphor (if it is one) draws on entrenched habits of thought.
"Who Is Sleeping In The Bed Of Sodom?", Nancy Levene
"Who Is Sleeping In The Bed Of Sodom?", Nancy Levene
Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)
The question that I am left with from the extraordinary presentations over the conference's two days borrows from Rabbi Steve Greenberg's and Ludger Viefhues's discussion of the multiple images of the biblical "Sodom". Conventionally Sodom has signified a place of sexual deviance or, conversely, sexual censorship. But as Greenberg pointed out, in many traditional commentaries on the story of the condemnation of Sodom, the issue was not that the townspeople were engaged in forbidden sexual practices, but that they were violent and hostile to those in need of shelter and food.