CFP Kalamazoo 2019: Dysphoric Pedagogies: Teaching About Transgender and Intersex in the Middle Ages (Due Sept 10)

"Earlier this year, UNESCO published a series of studies which showed how gender nonconformity lies at the core of both LGB and T discrimination in schools. Obviously, this also applies for intersex students. Sex education and the school environment tends to perpetuate the notion that only two sexes exist. "

The Global Alliance for LGBT Education

______________________________

______________________________

Dysphoric Pedagogies: 

Teaching About Transgender and Intersex in the Middle Ages 

Organizer: Gabrielle M.W. Bychowski 

(Case Western Reserve University) 

Co-Sponsor: “the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship (SMFS)” 

and “the Teaching Association for Medieval Studies (TEAMS)” 

Questions about transgender and intersex in the Middle Ages are nothing new in scholarship and especially not within classrooms. Students have long seemed curious about all the non-binary and non-cisgender lives that populate the syllabi of pre-modern seminars, sections and surveys. Hands can shoot up from wondering students when reading about the isles of Hermaphrodites or Amazons, sainted monks who started their life living as women, ambiguous figures like Chaucer’s Pardoner, and fictional stories like Roman de Silence or historical personas such as Joan of Arc. Whether or not we consider ourselves intersex or transgender studies scholars, as instructors of pre-modern eras we wrestle with such questions about how to respond to students who are excited to connect the gender diversity they see in their world with the images and stories they are reading about in the distant past.

This panel aims to offer a range of pedagogy techniques, lesson plans, assignments, reading lists, and anecdotes for all those interested in enhancing how they teach about transgender and intersex in the Middle Ages. The concept of “Dysphoric Pedagogies” is drawn from the DSM-5 diagnostic language that describes the experience where one’s identified or expressed gender conflicts with the gender assigned by society. Within the modern world there are many ways to experience dysphoria and there are trans, intersex, and non-binary who do not experience this conflict. We want to hear about your valuable experiences in teaching through such instances of dysphoria within the art, history, and literature in an era before the DSM-5 and its various diagnoses, or the coinage of the words “transgender” or “intersex,” How have these moments of gender diversity and conflict provoked conversations about self and society, expression and audience, nature and nurture, gender norms and non-conformity, past and present? Each presenter is recommended to consider how you’ve engaged with the resonance between medieval figures and the long history of trans, intersex, gender queerness and non-binary gender. Abstracts should be 250-500 words.

Send abstracts to Gabrielle M.W. Bychowski (Gabrielle.Bychowski@Case.edu)

______________________________

______________________________

Trans Pedagogy: How Transgender Can Save the Middle Ages

"I can't be a pessimist,
because I am alive."

James Baldwin

______________________________

______________________________

In my seminars "Beyond Male and Female: A History of Transgender, Intersex, and Non-Binary Identity," and, "Queer Christianity: A History of Gender and Sexuality in the Church," I run the assignment, The Queer Saints Project. So for this talk, I will use the figure of Joan of Arc as a queer saint to first explain our challenges and promises for medieval transgender studies. Joan allows us to consider our perspective from a distance, because transgender in the military is obviously not a modern conflict. Joan of Arc allows us to consider the current conflict we are in and how we get thru. Because each day all I need to do is check the Chronicle of Higher Education or the national news to discover a new unimagined way in which we are are being eliminated or even killed. That brings me to acknowledge that my title also begs the question, what exactly does she think the Middle Ages, or the studies of, need to be saved from? I think we each could list several things. This talk leverages trans interdisciplinarity against niche expertise, trans collaboration against isolating competition, and trans creativity over pessimism. This final point not only concludes but summarizes my main concern and my main response. Because the biggest threat I see to not only trans studies, the middle ages, but the academy in general is not any one threat from the outside against us but the threat of pessimism and despair from within us. Pessimism is not only the biggest danger for a new generation of jobs the threat that should be our biggest job to address if we are to help the new generation create a better future for our past. 

So why say that Transgender Can Save the Middle Ages? Because Transgender Studies is necessarily interdisciplinary, collaborative, and creative. These are traits that are increasingly critical to the survival of the humanities, especially Medieval Studies, in the face of a changing profession that is eliminating or absorbing fields, increasing the entry cost and exclusivity of stable sustainable jobs, and going through rapid transformations that make the future difficult to read for newly emerging talents as well as those experienced in the industry.

______________________________

______________________________

Interdisciplinarity

Joan is a saintly model, calling for imitation of an interdisciplinary impulse, combining familiar with the disciplines of maidenhood and manhood, scripture and combat. While Medieval Studies has long been interdisciplinary in its integrating of linguistics, history, archeology, religion, economics, and art, Trans Studies offers a network of fields and professions that would radically grow any academic partnership. Beyond affinity groups such as gender and queer studies, trans studies requires literacy in medicine, psychology, law, even military code. Thus, the implicit message of critics of medieval trans studies often seems to be: but I already did my comp. exams, I don’t want to have to learn all this new gender stuff. Yet the radical interdisciplinary nature that makes it intimidating to settled experts is what is making it a training ground for students to enter into the humanities, such as medieval trans studies, with experience working with STEM and polical-science. Teaching medieval trans and intersex history at an institution that identifies as a STEM, not a Liberal Arts, university, I’m grateful to have engineering, nursing, and comp-science students affirm the importance of such classes in their curriculum. 

______________________________

______________________________

Collaboration

Joan of Arc did not save Orleans alone but did so by collaborating with a network of forces, military brain and brawn, stone, metal, and wood, animals, and God. Learning from STEM and Political Science colleagues, as well as other groups in critical race and disability studies, Trans Studies values collaboration. Isolation feels pragmatic in a highly competitive market where one person getting a job will mean many others not getting hired. Yet despite this impulse, we see trans studies and other marginal studies encouraging a radically collaborative sharing of resources, credit, and attention. Why is this? For one, this stems from a lack of resources and respectability to start. In many cases those sharing these resources are those who themselves have very little of their own or just lately gained some reserve of academic juice. It may be the best investment in the future to spend our five-minutes in the room where things happen to slip as many other people into the room as possible. Our 5 minutes of time may become only 3 minutes but the two people we brought in will have 3-5 minutes of their own to do the same. And these people we sneak in may not always look like us. Collaboration is another element of intersectional interdisciplinary work. This is how we do more with less, a skill that administrations are demanding of departments but also a skill that emerging trans studies students and scholars learn from Day 1. In the end, we find ourselves not only working with people who the academy never would have expected but working on projects that we might never have given a second thought if a friend hadn’t said, hey, let’s put my thing together with yours and join forces. This is how we transform fields, putting intersectionality at the center of what we do, not merely as an isolated one-person diversity sub-field. And it makes us better scholars! Learning to better discuss race, disability, gender from our collaborators teaches us to notice things that afterwards we question how we ever did our work without seeing.

______________________________

______________________________

Creativity

What is often forgotten about martyrs is that they may die for the faith, they generally would rather live and indeed fight like hell (as long as they can) for the living. Joan embodies such creativity for us, not only by navigating loop-holes and limitations but by being both war-like and creatively life-seeking. Likewise, creativity is an underrated aspect of Trans Studies. This is often because the academy, like most institutions, is best at replicating itself and the things it knows. As a result, Trans Studies is cast as a new form of Queer Studies or Feminism or as yet another invention of post-modern critical theory. People thus tune out either because they long ago wrote off such –isms or because they feel like they already learned the essentials of that critical turn. But trans people and trans studies does more than merely disturb cisgender people’s sense of gender, does more than merely say, “me too,” in long conversations of oppressions. Trans people and studies exists in a world not built for us. We use the things given to us in new ways that better suit our needs. Or else we invent new tools, terminology, and methods to do things that cis culture cannot. Thus, when the academy declares that the old models are no longer working, trans persons and studies says, yeah, well they never really worked for us. I teach my students to see creativity in trans studies is one that tries to create, to breathe new life, to adapt to survive. Trans Studies acknowledges that not only are academics are losing jobs but lives, with trans youths currently at a 41-50% suicide rate and the average life expectancy of a trans woman of color being 35 years. We are creative in our classrooms not just to keep our professions alive but each other. In the words of James Baldwin, “I cannot be a pessimist, because I am alive.” A creative force profession is just what we need in a pessimistic academy. Something I say before each writing assignment: assume your audience is in some sort of pain, because most likely they are. This shifts us from writing what we need to write to writing what our audience needs to read. 

______________________________

______________________________

The Queer Saints Project

To close, I’ll ground interdisciplinary, collaborative, and creative trans pedagogy with an example from my seminars, The Queer Saints Project. Over a whole month of classes, such an assignment meets traditional academic outcomes, as well as outcomes that the academy has yet to require. In our first week, students delved into the medieval theology of saints, considering concepts such as the Imago Dei, Imitatio Christi, intercessions, iconography, martyrdom and patronage. Then the class examined history, art, and literature for stories of trans and queer saints, from Saint Marinos the Monk to the gender queerness of Saint Joan of Arc. Next, students were challenged to look around them at modern queer persons – who were or would never be canonized by the Church - who have lived out the same virtues of being an icon, a role model, someone worthy of imitation, who embodied ideals, whose intercession or patronage helped those in need. They compared their stories narratively, iconographically, and socially to the historical saints. At this stage, they wrote papers making their cases for their own Queer Saints.

Finally, on the last week of classes they reflected back on themselves, asking, “what makes me queer?” and “what makes me set-apart or sainted?” Making their own icons and mottos, mini saint’s lives, students shared struggles, hopes, and insights with one another. I had a queer woman of color share that our discussion of hair as a sign of shamed and reclaimed pride helped pull her out of a mid-semester depression when a flurry of white-supremacist hate against her hair made her question her own beauty and value. Her hair made her a saint. Her mottos were, #It'sMyHairAndIWantItForever and #TheBeautyOfAFro. Another student reported that she felt coming into the class that medieval history and religion were the property of white cis-het men and now she feels like she can claim these things and in which she can sees herself. Her motto was, #Thebiblesayswhat? A non-binary student wrote saying that they hardly ever get to see gender queer adults not only living but thriving and that this has transformed their sense of what is possible for their careers. Earlier in the semester, someone told me how sad they seemed and how they wished to scoop this student up and protect them. By the end of the semester, this student was saying how they wanted to scoop up those queer younger than them and keep them safe. Their motto was, #MournTheDeadFightForTheLiving. They affirmed that often we can save ourselves by saving one another. And that, after all, is really the thesis of my talk. When all is said and done, that is why I work in this field. This may bring a new generation of students to transgender or medieval studies but because trans and medieval studies can help empower new generations to create a new future from our past. Yes, Transgender Can Saves the Middle Ages, by which I mean, through intersectional collaboration and creativity embodied problematically by figures such as Joan of Arc, I believe we might just save one another. And yes, yes, we might find ourselves burned at the legal, federal, religious and professional stake. But I cannot tell you or my students what troubles the future may hold, I can help you learn how to face them.

______________________________

______________________________

Click Here for More about Trans Pedagogy

______________________________

______________________________

How (Not) To Argue on the Internet: Sample Online Assignments

“If you have to insist 

that you've won an internet argument, 

you've probably lost badly."

Danth's Law

______________________________

______________________________

Twitter Assignment

This week we finish our section in Intersex and Science, reading selections from Confessions of a Teenage Hermaphrodite. As discussed in class, the book uses a lot of imaginative imagery and metaphors. This visual style of writing has its benefits and difficulties, but is especially well suited to reading in a digital world. Twitter likewise depends on images, gifs, and other visuals.

For your weekly post, you will be posting a string of 5-7 tweets based on the information and ideas of one of the chapters. Each tweet should include an appropriate image. DO NOT simply copy and paste whole paragraphs. Rather, your posts should follow an arc:
introducing the idea in your own words (with image),
offering quotes (with image and citation),
close-read the quotation to unpack the many hidden or metaphoric meanings (with image)
sharing personal reactions (with image),
concluding by talking about the social implications (with image).

Throughout each tweet, use the hash-tags:

#USSO291T
#Science
#Intersex

Additionally, you must respond to at least one other student's tweet.

Finally, copy and paste your tweets into Canvas as a response. The reason for this is to make sure we have a back-up record of your post just in case a Tweet gets lost or problems arise. No need to include images.

______________________________

______________________________

Podcast Assignment

This Wednesday's class will be another online class! Combining the Canvas post (2 points) and the participation for the day (1 point), you will all be creating a "script" for an imaginary podcast episode on misconceptions and problems in how people connect transgender and mental illness, responding to the book Last Time I Wore a Dress --- you only need to have read the prologue and first few chapters in the first PDF but may read the other PDF if you are interested.

The discussion thread will be "the Beyond Male and Female podcast." Each of you will be guest speakers on this discussion thread, although the first person(s) who posts should take on the persona of host/s and give a cute/funny introductory sentence or two. Everyone else should introduce themselves when you add your entry (e.g. "Hey, this is Susan here. I had a though about that..." Every entry should be written as though it was being spoken into a mic.

You are required to post two (2) entries.
One short (one paragraph) entry in that cites Scholinski's book, The Last Time I Wore a Dress.
One regular (two paragraph) entry that adds new information to the conversation which cites outside research from Case Western Reserve University's online library database.

Try to write your responses in ways that responds to the last person(s) as though you are all being broadcast together in one big conversation. Consider using the "yes, however," or "yes, and furthermore..." tactic of responding to another person but also offering your own thoughts.

______________________________

______________________________

Tumblr Assignment

This week, we discussed Leelah Alcorns life and death as recorded on her Tumblr, Transgender Queen of Hell. In class on Wednesday, we selected images from her blog and close-read them as representative of her mentality, social and digital contexts, as well as what kept her going and what ultimately failed her.

For this week's post, you will select two of the images from the PDF that were not discussed in class to produce paragraph length close-readings. Screen shots will be useful to help readers see the image you are describing and interpreting.

______________________________

______________________________

Youtube Assignment

This week we read and discussed Animorphs #3, reading Tobias the Hawk as metaphorical representative of transgender youth. For Post 7, you will not be posting to Youtube but should write your post as though you are a Youtuber/Vlogger doing a Review of Animorphs #3. Open with a fun title for your channel/video and write in the voice of someone speaking to a camera. Your review should focus on how Animorphs #3 could be used to discuss transgender issues with young people. Focus on one particular element: dysphoria, depression, isolation, being an ally, activism to save other marginalized people, privileges in relation to gender presentation or transition, drag, etc.

______________________________

______________________________

#Hashtag Assignment

Over the seminar, we have explored different elements of online life via themes, projects, and methods. In particular, we have learned the value of being pithy in social media, such as through the invention and use of hashtags.

As this is the final Canvas post, to bring the seminar to a close you will write three hashtags of your own (with explanations) based on specific days' discussion over the semester. These hashtags will be due on Monday and discussed as part of our final reflection.

I look forward to reading and discussing your hashtags in class on Monday!

Best wishes,

Dr. B

The format of your three hashtags may be a bit longer than usual hashtags (try to avoid just single words) although they are likely to be just a single sentence.

Hashtags 1-3:

"Write your #Hashtag in bold as a sentence that summarizes some lesson, motto, or rule." #LikeThis

Explanation 1-3:

Under the #hashtag, write in italics a description of what specific day of the seminar this precept reflects or derives from in some way. Name the assigned reading for the day, even if it is incidental to the overall lesson. Mention how this lesson stuck out to you personally as one of your top 3 take-away concepts. If your hashtag is more general, one that covers a whole section or a specific assignment, locate a day that represents this lesson for you. Try to give a medium sized paragraph of at least 5 sentences.

______________________________

______________________________

Click Here for More about Trans Pedagogy

______________________________

______________________________