Carolyn Dinshaw, Getting Medieval: Sexualities and Communities, Pre- and Postmodern. Duke University Press, 1999

Farina, Lara

doi:10.17077/1536-8742.1471

Cited by 8 publications

(11 citation statements)

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“…This empathetic approach to the past is probably what Carolyn Dinshaw had in mind when she suggested we interpret the relationship between the past and the present as "touching across time" or, in other words, the collapse of time "through affective contact between marginalized people now and then" (FREEMAN et al, 2007, p. 178;DINSHAW, 1999). The fluid temporality that allows for this experience of "touching across time" neutralizes the tenacity of a modernist temporality that emphasizes progress toward the future.…”

Section: No Future Left (But Empathy)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Queerchronotopia

Medeiros

2023

Hist. Historiogr.

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This paper joins the debate of a still-expanding literature on queer temporalities that, among other things, raises the question of a queer-specific construction of time. This specific temporality is what I call queerchronotopia. By setting the description of the historical worldview (as described by Reinhart Koselleck, Sepp Gumbrecht, and François Hartog) against queer methodologies developed by scholars like Paul B. Preciado and Jack J. Halberstam, this article claims that, since the last decades of the nineteenth century, definitions and embodiments of queerness and a queer-specific temporality are constantly revised in light of the temporal shift between two paradigmatic social constructions of time—the historical worldview and “our broad present”. First, we summarize how homosexuality goes from an ahistorical aberration at the end of the 19th century to the emergence of the historical homos at the beginning of the gay liberation movement in the 1970s. Second, we try to demonstrate how the appearance of identity temporalities as an aftereffect of identity politics in the 1970s unveils some of the fractures in the temporal experience anchored in the historical worldview. Lastly, we discuss how the latent “broad present” that had already shown some of its aspects in the aftermath of the gay liberation movement and civil rights era in the United States became more evident in the 1980s when the AIDS epidemic becomes increasingly intertwined with a concern with the health of the planet. Without dismissing the pessimist tone that has permeated the academic and intellectual discussions about the future of the planet and the catastrophic threats to human and nonhuman entities living in the Anthropocene, this article concludes by suggesting that the queer community and its activism, particularly in response to the AIDS epidemic, could teach us some lessons about how to live “with the trouble” in our present.

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Section: No Future Left (But Empathy)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Queerchronotopia

Medeiros

2023

Hist. Historiogr.

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“…In the opening scene of the film, as Henry enters the cathedral to make his penance, the choir switches to foreshadowing the final judgment, like the painted Christ in the apse: it sounds the final trump at the same time as it announces the opening of the drama. It makes for a particularly neat commentary on the ways in which medievalism can superimpose moments of time, as well as layering meanings (Eco, 1990;Dinshaw, 1999;Lees and Overing, 2019).…”

Section: Religious Medievalism: Seeing and Hearing Medieval Christianitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Sex, Politics, Religion: Teaching Challenging Medievalisms with Becket (1964) and The Lion in Winter (1968)

Barnhouse

2023

Open Library of Humanities

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This essay explores how the films Becket (1964) and The Lion in Winter (1968), both starring Peter O’Toole as Henry II, can start conversations about medieval sexuality, politics, and religion in the undergraduate classroom. All three of these topics are frequently imagined by students as monolithic in the medieval period; sex and sexuality, for example, can be reduced to heterosexual practices joylessly regulated by church law. Insofar as students have a conception of medieval political systems, these are usually imagined as both strictly hierarchical and inescapably oppressive. Medieval religion — usually Christianity — is also often imagined as an instrument of oppression and control. All these negative assumptions can be productively interrogated using these films. This essay explores how the films — colorful, tightly scripted, and featuring arguably some of the twentieth century’s most celebrated actors — are useful teaching tools, both in an undergraduate course on the Middle Ages in cinema, and in a general medieval survey course. Becket, with its characteristically Anouilhian theme of realism vs. idealism, is a good starting point for discussing the complexities of medieval law, church politics and the church’s social functions with students. The films also help to start useful conversations on the visibility and invisibility of medieval women in film. Finally, both films depict queer sexualities in ways that are at odds with much popular medievalism. Whether in The Lion in Winter’s multiple transgressive sexual relationships, or in the visually explicit erotic tension between Burton’s portrayal of Becket and O’Toole’s Henry II, this essay examines how these films challenge students’ preconceptions and create opportunities for analyzing relevant primary sources. As such, this essay discusses both pedagogical strategies and assignment options related to the two films. I argue that both films can encourage analysis of the Angevin Empire and its afterlives in popular culture, and that this analysis is broadly relevant to popular medievalisms.Banner image: The Lion in Winter (1968), Haworth Productions. Image taken from Filmdetail (www.filmdetail.com).

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“…Trans readings of Byzantine history are still in a putative stage of development and the field as a whole has been slower than Western Medieval Studies to respond to Carolyn Dinshaw's methodological intervention into queer history writing. 20 This means that perhaps some of these structures are more visible in Byzantine studies -but their articulation is relevant to all trans history writing. I do not want to set a new, impossible, standard for writing uninflected by hegemonic power -I want to follow the fault lines that cisness produces in their work, to suggest new readings and directions of investigation for the questions raised by their research.…”

Section: Where Is Cis?mentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Selective historians’: The construction of cisness in Byzantine and Byzantinist texts

Maude

2023

Gender & History

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Far from being a natural, prelapsarian state, cisness is a hegemonic ideal of gender performance demanded of all people. This article explores the construction of cisness in the field of Byzantine studies, and the historiographical tropes through which it is maintained, naturalised and made invisible. It uses analysis of hegemonic cisness in Byzantine studies to suggest new avenues of investigation for Byzantine gender history. It proposes ‘cisness’ as method; a focal point for historical and historiographical investigation. It asks, was there cisness in Byzantium? If so, did it resemble ours?

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Carolyn Dinshaw, Getting Medieval: Sexualities and Communities, Pre- and Postmodern. Duke University Press, 1999

Cited by 8 publications

References 0 publications

Queerchronotopia

Queerchronotopia

Sex, Politics, Religion: Teaching Challenging Medievalisms with Becket (1964) and The Lion in Winter (1968)

‘Selective historians’: The construction of cisness in Byzantine and Byzantinist texts

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