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lebelinconnu's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.75
battlepoet's review
The text was wonderful, but too serious for me to try and read right now.
ekfmef's review
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
CW: (internalized) transphobia
As a trans or nonbinary person, every day you get the message 'you don't belong here, you shouldn't exist'. Eventually you start to feel like you're a mistake, a mutation. To counteract these ideas, it is essential to be able to connect yourself to a broader narrative, a world where you belong and where you are valued for who you are. Finding such a connection is hard in today's polarized discourse, especially when your very existence is considered a matter of debate.
This volume with scientific essays on trans and genderqueer people and themes in medieval hagiography brings about a connection with the past I never knew was there. I'm not in the field of history but it's very readable (save for one essay that contained so many zombie nouns that it was unreadable) . The authors created a very solid framework in which they draw on established rigorous methods of inquiry grounded in queer and crip theory.
Ok, that was the stuffy part of the review, it is so freaking amazing to read about saints queering their gender, about how Jesus was also super gender queer - OMG his side wound!! - the people in the Middle Ages held a lot more space for genderqueerness than many people nowadays. As this book is about hagiographies, it's about the people that were considered noteworthy exemplars - and apparently, it is totally saintly to change your gender expression to what you feel is right! That this isn't 'reading more into it than there is', is made clear by the urtext itself, all of them frequently affirm the genderqueer aspects - switching around pronouns, not drawing them as 'generic' AFAB or AMAB individuals, etc.
I'm left with a sense of wonder and respect for the people in the Middle Ages who had such a rich relationship with their saints and how they created space for a lot of personal narratives, not just the white allocishet patriarchy shoved down our throats every day.
As a trans or nonbinary person, every day you get the message 'you don't belong here, you shouldn't exist'. Eventually you start to feel like you're a mistake, a mutation. To counteract these ideas, it is essential to be able to connect yourself to a broader narrative, a world where you belong and where you are valued for who you are. Finding such a connection is hard in today's polarized discourse, especially when your very existence is considered a matter of debate.
This volume with scientific essays on trans and genderqueer people and themes in medieval hagiography brings about a connection with the past I never knew was there. I'm not in the field of history but it's very readable (save for one essay that contained so many zombie nouns that it was unreadable) . The authors created a very solid framework in which they draw on established rigorous methods of inquiry grounded in queer and crip theory.
Ok, that was the stuffy part of the review, it is so freaking amazing to read about saints queering their gender, about how Jesus was also super gender queer - OMG his side wound!! - the people in the Middle Ages held a lot more space for genderqueerness than many people nowadays. As this book is about hagiographies, it's about the people that were considered noteworthy exemplars - and apparently, it is totally saintly to change your gender expression to what you feel is right! That this isn't 'reading more into it than there is', is made clear by the urtext itself, all of them frequently affirm the genderqueer aspects - switching around pronouns, not drawing them as 'generic' AFAB or AMAB individuals, etc.
I'm left with a sense of wonder and respect for the people in the Middle Ages who had such a rich relationship with their saints and how they created space for a lot of personal narratives, not just the white allocishet patriarchy shoved down our throats every day.
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