Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Call for Papers: Transliterature Sponsored Conference Panels 2017


Remembering all those fighting the fight 
On the Feast Day of Saint Joan of Arc
______________________________
______________________________

In the open letter to the International Medieval Congress in Kalamazoo, I mentioned that there had been a downturn in transgender and intersex focused conference panels. In 2016, two sessions each were devoted to the respective gender minorities. In 2017, no sessions existed for either to attract, collect, and promote these fields. While at the Congress, I sat in on some fantastic papers that addressed trans or non-binary embodiments in some way. Also, I had some cherished coffee breaks and meals with amazing queer, trans, and non-binary scholars; some of whom were able to be at the conference because of the Transgender Travel Fund provided by the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship. Listening to their work and their stories, I was honored and affirmed to share in the significant contributions and sacrifices being made to improve the field and the lives of those who work in it. But I also felt the weight of how hard it is, possibly too hard and unsustainable, for those who carry the burden to push our community forward.

Amidst the tears and mutual support, there were direct actions that continue to give me hope. This includes the invitation to organize panels for the upcoming BABEL Working Group and Medieval Congress 2018. Two panels are already approved and open for submissions for the Biennial Meeting of the BABEL Working Group in Reno, NV. The first invites submissions for scholars, authors, and artists working to promote the consideration or reimagining of transgender history. The second calls for submissions to take the risk to discuss the fraught but often life-giving intersection of faith communities and scholarship. Abstracts are due June 10. Finally, at the business meeting for the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship a vote was called for over a dozen panels, of which only about a half dozen were selected for submitted for consideration to the Medieval Congress. I am excited and encouraged to say that when a sessions "Towards a Medieval Transgender Studies" went up for a vote, so many hands in the 100+ person room was raised that the panel was approved without a count, on grounds of being "vaguely unanimous." The session is yet to be approved by the Congress but please feel called to consider and contact me via e-mail if you have interest in participating or if you want more information.

Looking back and looking ahead, I also wanted to say a word of gratitude and wonder for all the committed, impassioned, and brilliant academics, artists, and writers I've get to know over the course of doing this work. What keeps me going and motivated to push for more sessions and engagement in the fields of trans, intersex, feminist, disability, and critical race studies is enjoyment and learning I get from encountering your professional and personal contributions. I consider my #1 job is to be a cheerleader for these amazing communities. Because you all are working yourself raw and taking big chances, doing your share and more to make the academy and our culture better. That deserves to be remembered, honored, and I am just tickled ROYGBIV to be able to work with you. Thank you and may you persist no matter how many times you are warned or have things explained to you.



______________________________
______________________________



Towards a Medieval Transgender Studies
(email: M.W. Bychowski, MBychows@gwu.edu)
Due September 15

The International Congress on Medieval Studies
Kalamazoo, MI. May, 2018.

Facing resistance in regards to its place in contemporary society, transgender studies is beginning to look for roots within premodern eras. In recent years, a question has been floating around medieval and transgender studies, spurring conference papers and special issues of the Medieval Feminist Forum and Transgender Studies Quarterly: how might we begin to articulate a medieval transgender studies? Gaining momentum, a critical turn towards a medieval transgender studies shows signs of emergence. If such a movement is to be possible, much work remains to be done. Following in the tradition of interventions by queer, disability, and feminist scholarship, debates are arising regarding language, identity, narrative, historicism, and methodologies. This session will serve as a forum where presenters will articulate the challenges, the promises, and the resources that lay on the road towards a trans future for the past. Participants are encouraged to consider the archives of medieval history, theology, art, medicine, science, and literature that can be put into critical dialog with trans voices from the past and today.


______________________________

______________________________

Imagining Trans History and Transhistoricism: 
Creation and/as/or Critique
(Email: M.W. Bychowski, mbychows@email.gwu.edu, 
and Bruce Holsinger, bwholsinger@gmail.com)
DUE JUNE 10th (NOW CLOSED).

5th Biennial Meeting of the BABEL Working Group
Reno, NV. October 2017.

Sandy Stone’s foundational transgender studies essay, “The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto,” sets out a necessary and broad mission for the future of the past: “transsexuals must take responsibility for all of their history, to begin to rearticulate their lives not as a series of erasures… but as a political action begun by reappropriating difference and reclaiming the power of the refigured and reinscribed body… to begin to write oneself into the discourses by which one has been written.” In the spirit of this mission statement, our panel invites a wide examination of the histories and discourses from and through which concepts of transgender develop.

The panel will be open to a range of approaches. History invites creativity. Medieval and modern texts invite both critical readers and artists to imagine the life and lives that occur in the silences, though often in very different ways. Living in a world and language not designed for it, transgender history regularly appears among the contradictions, erasures, and euphemistic metaphors in the official records. As a result, telling and otherwise recreating trans history demands careful scrutiny of the modes and limitations of anti-transphobic creative work. Introducing and connecting ideas from across time, trans historical work time and again forms intersections with transhistorical palimpsests. This panel considers the myriad ways that scholars, authors, poets, lyricists, and artists fill out the interweaving cultural pasts and presents of transgender. The aim is to ask questions, take risks, and play with the arts and sciences that connect generations of trans histories and trans dreams.

We hope to receive proposals that reflect both scholarly and creative work, and ideally a combination of the two. The session will feature a series of ten to fifteen minute presentations, followed by a discussion.
______________________________

______________________________


Here I Am, Stuck in the Middle with You

(Email: Ben Utter, bdutter@gmail.com)
DUE JUNE 10th (NOW CLOSED).

5th Biennial Meeting of the BABEL Working Group
Reno, NV. October 2017.

Finding, keeping, proclaiming, losing, or breaking with one’s faith is always a risky business, and in America, where faith is a big business, the bad faith of Evangelical Christian voters has made relationships riskier than ever for those who find themselves caught between mutually-antagonistic cultural communities. This roundtable session will be an opportunity for BABELers of faith or with ties to various faith traditions—Christian and otherwise—to address the relationship between faith (i.e. the non-empirical, the spiritual) and action or risk. As people between these communities, we may have acted as interpreters, if not necessarily apologists, between groups that regard one another with deep suspicion or even hostility. What are the possibilities and perils of such a position, now that we can no longer be (and probably shouldn’t have ever been) neutral points of contact? How do we use our positions at the intersection of communities that don’t often talk or get along? What are the struggles and how might these contact points be used or improved in the future? Can we condemn our “post-factual” world while at the same time avoiding denigrating people of faith? By the same token, how might we encourage our faith communities to be skeptical of neo-liberal “data idolatry” and to consider the important relationship between facts (and by proxy, research) and interpretation (and/or belief)?

We invite participation from people of, adjacent to, in recovery from, or without faith or spiritual conviction of any kind. The session will feature a series of ten-minute presentations, followed by a discussion. Please send proposals of 250 words or so describing the story, homily, confessio, prayer, waz, or apostatic manifesto you’d like to share.

Co-organizers: Ben Utter, Gabrielle MW Bychowski, Lesley Curtis, Alex Mueller, Noelle Phillips, & Cord Whittaker.
______________________________
______________________________

Monday, May 22, 2017

Wear Your Advocacy: Transliterature Opens an Online Store!

M.W.Bychowski

“Sche gan to brewyn

The Book of Margery Kempe
(Good for much but not business advice)
______________________________
______________________________


Transliterature Online is proud to announce the opening of an online store. Currently, the selection is limited to an assortment of button designs but more styles and items will soon be coming. All proceeds from the sales will go to funding important charities, starting with the Transgender Travel Fund run by the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship that just this year brought two trans scholars to the Medieval Congress at Kalamazoo, Michigan, an important conference for those interested in engaging in studies of the Middle Ages.

This year, the goal was to print a few buttons as prototypes to test to see if there was any demand for such a venture. Based on initial interest, a pilot order was placed for packs of 10 buttons in each of the four original designs. The hope was to sell enough to match the cost of the buttons (which would be covered by Transliterature as a donation) and have a few extra to give away at a later event. How surprised was I when the buttons sold out within 24 hours! The total funds generated by the pilot program was $150. At a certain point, the prototypes began to be sold as well as the buttons off my coat, and still a wait list began to develop.

For future conferences, I will continue to try out new designs as well as some of the old, so everyone who wants to donate and get a button can. Likely, there will start to be designs exclusive to specific events, available only at the conference. In any case, even if this is a temporary experiment, Transliterature is proud to be able to facilitate funding toward some great causes and working with you to build advocacy for important issues. Thank you for your investment and interest!

______________________________
______________________________

"A Trans Middle Ages Matters" Button 
(mini and 2.5 inch single or 10 pack)



"They called me the LOATHLY LADY before I was nasty" Button (mini and 2.5 inch single or 10 pack)




"Queer Gower: Confess Love, Voice Pride, Reflect Your Truth" Button (mini and 2.5 inch single or 10 pack)


"Mad for Margery" Button (mini and 2.5 inch single or 10 pack)


"#Transform" Button (mini and 2.5 inch single or 10 pack)


______________________________
______________________________

Monday, May 8, 2017

Transgender Can Save the Middle Ages: A Letter to the International Congress on Medieval Studies


“You ask me what I want this year
And I try to make this kind and clear
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days

The Goo Goo Dolls
______________________________
______________________________

Dear friends in the Medieval Congress,

I don't know most of you personally, although I would like to begin. Most of you don't know me, although that is less important. What is more important is that we all could stand to know more about all the great people in the trans community. Let me tell you a bit about them:

A magical moment happened in my house about a week ago. It was bedtime and I was reading to our 10-year-old and our 7-year-old. I usually begin with a bit of educational literature before moving on to the fiction. Well, this night I had just put down "This Book is Gay," a primer on the spectrum of gender and sexual diversity, when our youngest raised their hand. I was expecting a question (they ask great questions) but to my surprise they had an admission. They wanted to confess that years ago, when they first remember learning about LGBT identities from me, they had assumed (not yet realizing that having two moms wasn't a norm) that it was a distinctly medieval thing. Can you imagine? I am guessing that like me you learned about LGBT culture AFTER or separately from learning about the Middle Ages. But for this child, the gender queer kid of a trans lesbian family, the Middle Ages started as a queer place before it was anything else. I'm not asking for laughs, I'm just telling you about family.

That was a good night but there are harder nights. I try to read or adapt medieval stories to read to my kids. Some nights are easier. Our kids LOVE the Tale of Chanticleer. Talking animals? Big fans. Kissing butts and farts out the window? They eat that up! But then I turn to the next Tale and I see the rape of young women. I turn it again and I see women being treated as property. I turn it again and I see a father cut off his girl's head as she begs for him to reconsider. Those are harder nights. Then I still go in there to read to them. I'm not asking for pity, I'm telling you about an institution of sexism.

Then there are the days that I get approached by people on the street, at conferences, or via e-mail. I hear from established medievalists about how they are transgender but haven't been able to come out because they fear the ridicule of fellow medievalists. At conferences and online we hear the jokes. You may not know we are listening. You may not know we are trans. But we hear you. Then I find some way to respond to them. I'm not asking for explanations, I'm telling you about your colleagues.

Then there are times I hear this, "How are YOU a medievalist?" I've gotten this from prominent scholars in Trans Studies (if you are familiar with the field, you know their names) as they looked me up and down, then proceeded into a diatribe about the marginalization of female scholars, Catholicism, and male supremacy. There are many who share their view and there are real instances, even traditions, that contribute to this concern. Many in transgender studies find it hard to move into medieval studies because of some valid fears. Even if this is hardly representative of the whole of transgender or medieval studies, they voice issues that deserve to be answered. Then I (and others) find some way to defend the field. I'm not asking for thanks, I'm telling you how our profession is perceived.

Then there are times when I'm grabbing coffee with early career scholars, young women, who just aren't sure how or if there could be a place for them in the profession. The job market is brutal for those of us who are lucky enough to find work. And most are not that lucky. And we hear about male supremacist websites, about institutions intentionally favoring male candidates. And we hear men joking about how "feminism" or "transgender" is taking over everything, how funny it all is, how no one can take a joke. Then we find some way to support each other to keep sending applications. I'm not asking for you to surrender your sense of humor (although I would recommend the better brands), I'm tell you about how many women are getting Ph.Ds in medieval studies and how few of them are getting hired.

Then there is me packing my bags for Kalamazoo, like I do every year, like I plan to for many years to come. And one of the things I am packing, which is there every year, is anxiety and frustration. I recall the mocking of women, feminism, transgender persons, and the small gestures being made to give us back a bit of our dignity. I recall how last year there were two panels on transgender and intersex in the Middle Ages, how this year there are none. I get ready to go through the TSA and their policy of groping each trans person's genitals EVERY TIME because we don't match the 3D models programmed inside their body scanners. I recall how hard it is for me to get to the conference each year and imagine how hard it is for others. I will find out, as I do every year, who decided it wasn't worth the fight and stayed home. Then I'll find some way to encourage them to consider trying again next year. I'm not asking for the Medieval Congress to radically change, I'm telling you about what stands in the way of it growing.

This letter is not an attack. I'm just telling you about my community. I'm telling you about a side of your community that may not be the parts you get to see. I'm not asking for you to make everything better all at once. I'm asking that you try to make it a little better today than it was yesterday. Even if you stumble today, it will soon be yesterday and then you can try again. This letter is my way of saying that I'll be there along side you in the Medieval Congress because like you I love what we try to do here. I love it so much that I want us to do it better. I want it to be better for those who don't come or can't come. I want it to be better for those who might come or will come in the future. I want it to be better for those who are being ridiculed. I want it to be better for those who don't get it yet because you deserve to know how much better things can be. I want it to be better because I know so many amazing women and trans people who will revolutionize and revitalize any profession in which they are able to be a part. I want it to be better because I know that the Middle Ages are worth studying for everyone. I want it to be better because I know that women can save the Middle Ages. I want it to be better because I know that transgender can save the Middle Ages.

So don't do it for me. Do it for them. If you can't do it for them, do it for yourself because you deserve to be a part of a Medieval Studies that does a better job at making the world better.



Sincerely,


A friend

______________________________

______________________________