Resilience, Persistence, and Agency, 2022 Gender and Medieval Studies Conference, The American University of Paris, January 5–7, 2022

Resilience in the face of adversity for marginalized individuals, persistence in the face of obstacles created by hegemonic power structures, and creative or subversive forms of agency were as often exerted by feminine and queer actors in the Middle Ages as they are in the twenty-first century. Contemporary medieval scholarship is inflected by intersectional feminist frameworks that explore how individuals can understand and subvert power structures in the face of multiple oppressions, postcolonial studies that broadens our understanding of what constitutes a “Middle Ages,” and critical race theory that invites medievalists to interrogate the history of their discipline and the pernicious ends to which “medievalism” has been put in contemporary white supremacist discourses.

This edition of the Gender and Medieval Studies Conference invites papers that examine how resilience, persistence, and agency were deployed by actors during the global Middle Ages and how medieval studies can play an activist role in deconstructing the misperceptions of the period that buttress oppressive politics.

The organizers welcome proposals on any aspect of resilience, persistence, and agency as it relates to medieval genders and sexualities from scholars at any stage of study or career. Proposals for papers may include, but are not limited to:

• Subversive discourses in the Middle Ages/covert agency/unrecognized resilience/transgressive
• behaviors/persistence and resistance/anachronism and activism/postcolonial medieval
• studies/recovering trans and queer narratives/antiracist medieval scholarship/non-European Middle Ages.

We anticipate contributors giving papers of 10-15 minutes. Proposals for panels of 3-4 papers are also warmly welcomed, as are proposals for roundtables (90 minutes) of 3-5 participants.

The conference aims to be as inclusive as possible and encourages participation from around the globe. As such the sessions and activities will be a mixture of on-site events in Paris with remote and/or asynchronous participation welcome. The conference will be broadcast via Zoom on Paris time.