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Reposted by Michael Eber

Michael Eber @ebermichael.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

We've extended the deadline for submissions for "Queer and Trans Medieval Communities" at next year's @imc-leeds.bsky.social to *8 September*! If you work on any aspect of medieval trans and queer communitie(s), please consider sending in an abstract. We'd love to hear from you!

As the existence of the trans and queer community is under constant and increasing threat across the world – with alt-right political rhetoric in the West seeking to rupture solidarity for and within the global queer community – the work of the historian has never been more vital. Historians have long found solidarity and recognition of queer experiences and practices with individuals and groups of the past. In concert with the wealth of current research being produced in trans and queer medieval studies, this panel session responds to the urgency of this present moment. In the face of existential threats, we recognise the importance of finding community with one another, which includes understanding our community has a history. This panel session seeks not only to contribute to transtemporal and scholarly trans and queer community building, but to better understand what historical trans and queer communities and practices may have looked like – including the mechanisms and structures that attempted to preclude such community formations. Engaging with and making legible such histories constitutes an act of compassion both with historical actors and with living members of our community today. It also constitutes an act of resistance, by finding existence and continuity in community.
Presentations may address but are not limited to the following topics:
-Cultivating cross-temporal queer and trans community
-How trans and genderqueer experiences manifest in the Middle Ages
-Spaces in which queer/trans community could be manifested in the Middle Ages
-Communal failure/loss of community
-A failing or absence of a trans and queer community
-Texts, codes, etc. used in constituting queer/trans communities in the Middle Ages
-Methodologies available for talking about trans/queer communities
EXTENDED TO 8 SEPTEMBER
TITLE, ABSTRACT (200 WORDS) AND BIO (150 WORDS) TO:
Michael Eber michael.eber@uni-koeln.de
Hannah Victoria hjohnson@aup.edu
Oliver Wilkin o.lg-wilkin@outlook.com

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Michael Eber @ebermichael.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

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Michael Eber @ebermichael.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

CfP for @imc-leeds.bsky.social 2027: "Queer and Trans Medieval Communities" 🌈🏳️‍⚧️ We welcome papers (15-20min) from all disciplines of medieval studies by scholars at any level, on any aspect of medieval queer and trans community, in person or virtual. Abstracts due 31 Aug. We'd love to hear from you!

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Michael Eber @ebermichael.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

Huge thanks to @erinbartram.bsky.social for including me in this series, and for shepherding my first foray into non-academic writing. This was a blast to work on!

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Reposted by Michael Eber

Contingent Magazine @contingent-mag.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

"I had never come across a Christ-figure quite like this." The latest in our series A Time Of Monsters, from @ebermichael.bsky.social

contingentmagazine.org

Christ, What a Monster!

Something gendered was going on here.

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Reposted by Michael Eber

Musa Okwonga @okwonga.bsky.social · 20/10/2025

So the main culture war in Germany, fought by the country’s leader, is that despite mass deportations there are still too many non-white men in German cities: which needs to change so that white German daughters can feel safer. That’s an actual position that he is taking. An incitement to violence.

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Reposted by Michael Eber

Alicia Spencer-Hall @aspencerhall.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

Today, I resigned as Series Editor of the Hagiography beyond Tradition series & member of the Academic Board for the Premodern Health Disease and Disability series at @amsterdamupress.bsky.social with immediate effect. If any other SEs/Board Members wants to talk about my rationale, my DMs are open

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Alan van Beek @thiliel.bsky.social · 07/07/2025

Tomorrow evening at #IMC2025 come to our roundtable discussion with @chillrike.bsky.social @blairapgar.bsky.social “Let’s Continue to Get Uncomfortable!: Doing Intersectionality". You can also attend online. If you can't attend in person but you want to work with us, drop us a line here! 💕

media.tenor.com

an aerial view of cars driving on a street with a red background

Alt: an aerial view of cars driving on a street with a red background

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Reposted by Michael Eber

Alicia Spencer-Hall @aspencerhall.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

Hello friend www.aup.nl/en/book/9789...

Two copies of the book Disability and Sanctity in the Middle Ages

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Reposted by Michael Eber

Clare Downham @downham.bsky.social · 24/05/2025

Excellent presentations by researchers in Liverpool today and researchers in London yesterday incl. @natashaamberjo.bsky.social and @aspencerhall.bsky.social. This is all the things I hoped for from academia - learning, sharing knowledge & seeing the next generation rise.

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Michael Eber @ebermichael.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

Excited to finally share the program for "Trans Sainthood in Translation, ca. 400-1500" at @ghilondon.bsky.social on 22-23 May 🏳️‍⚧️🌈 If you are interested in trans saints anywhere from late antique Egypt to late medieval Iceland, join us on zoom! Registration at wwwghil.ac.uk/events/confe...

$Poster for the conference "Trans Sainthood in Translation, ca. 400-1500", 22-23 May 2025 at German Historical Institute London. More information at www.ghil.ac.uk. In the background behin the title, there is a 13th century depiction of a child looking at a monk (Saint Marina/Marinus) from the manuscript Zwettl, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 13, with an added visual effect that makes it look like white light is coming from the child's eyes and being refracted into rainbow colors by the saint's halo. At the bottom, the logos of the sponsors of the conference: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, German Historical Institute London, the Hagiography Society, and the Past&Present Society.$

Program for Day 1 of the conference "Trans Sainthood in Translation":
22 May
Welcome and Introduction: 9:00–9:30
Stephan Bruhn (German Historical Institute, London)
Session 1: 9:30–11:00
Jenny Albani (Greek Ministry of Culture, Athens): The Holy Memory of a Transgender Saint in the Christian East: The Cult and Image of Pelagia the Penitent
Julie Van Pelt (Universiteit Gent): Trans Sainthood and Metaphrasis: Re-writing Gender in the Metaphrastic
Life of Theodora/-us of Alexandria (BHG 1730)
Charles Kuper (University of Tennessee, Knoxville): Translating the Lives of Trans Saints. Crossing Time and Space in the Greek, Latin, and Syriac Lives of Euphrosyne/Smaragdos
Coffee Break: 11:00–11:30
Session 2: 11:30–12:30
Michael Eber (Universität zu Köln): Lost in Translation? Defusing the Lives of Trans Saints in Latin Translation
Mariana Bodnaruk (Masarykova Univerzita, Brno): Pelagia*us’ Gender Performance in Church Slavonic Versions of the Life
Lunch Break: 12:30–14:00
Session 3: 14:00–15:30
Gabrielle Bychowski (Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland): Imago Transvesti: St. Marinos, the Images of a Transgender God
Arietta Papaconstantinou (Aix-Marseille Université): Authorial authority. Who defines the gender of Marina/Marinos (and others)?
Luis Josué Salés (Scripps College, Claremont): Exporting Greco-Roman Androprimacy? Perils of Translating Trans Saints Lives into Ethiopian and Syrian Contexts
Coffee Break: 15:30–16:00
Keynote 1: 16:00–17:00
Roland Betancourt (University of California Irvine): Trans In/visibility in Byzantium: Resistance, Resilience, Refusal
Conference Dinner: 19:00

Program for Day 2 of the conference "Trans Sainthood in Translation":
23 May
Session 4: 09:00–10:30
Juliette Vuille (Université de Lausanne): “We are Family”: Familial Ties as Gender Correction in Old English Trans Lives
Clovis Maillet (Villa Medici, Rome): Eugeni/e, Hiacynth and Prothus between Genders: Images and Texts in Latin, Greek and Old English
James Davison (University of Liverpool): Ælfric, Eugenia*us, and Euphrosyne*Smaragdus: Trans saints in early Medieval England
Coffee Break: 10:30–11:00
Session 5: 11:00–12:00
Robert Mills (University College London): Eugenia*us in Translation: Art, Liturgy, and Landscape in Iberia
Leticia Ding (Université de Lausanne): Dieudonnée, Marine and Eufrosine: Three Shades of Gender Crossing
Lunch Break: 12:00–13:00
Session 6: 13:00–14:00
Johannes Traulsen (Freie Universität Berlin): Age and Asceticism in the Medieval German Vitae of Trans Saints
Natasha Bradley (Lincoln College, University of Oxford): Cross-Dressing Saints in Old Norse Translation: Marina the Monk and Pelagia the Penitent
Keynote 2: 14:00–15:00
Alicia Spencer-Hall (University College London): Trans Monasticism and the Trans Hagiographic Impulse: Genders, Texts, Lives
Concluding Remarks: 15:00–15:15
Michael Eber (Universität zu Köln)

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Reposted by Michael Eber

Bad Gays @badgayspod.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

If you are trans, this list has resources that might help you. If you can afford the time or money, this list has organizations that need your support to keep trans people in the UK alive against the express wishes of that country’s media and political elite goodlawproject.org/resource/sup...

goodlawproject.org

Support resources for our trans friends and allies | Good Law Project

At a time when anti-trans discrimination is rife and hate crime has reached record levels, it’s important to know what support is out there for trans, non-binary or gender-questioning individuals and ...

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Reposted by Michael Eber

Alicia Spencer-Hall @aspencerhall.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

Cannot wait for this to be out in the world, current ETA for hardcopy is late spring www.aup.nl/en/book/9789... @amsterdamupress.bsky.social @parkerchronicle.bsky.social #CripSky #DisabilitySky #MedievalSky #Skystorians 🗃️

Front cover of Disability and Sanctity in the Middle Ages. On a pale grey background, a medieval wooden crucifix casts a shadow to its right. Christ is missing his arms and part of his left lower leg. The Crucific is worn, in the process of disintegration.

This volume significantly expands current understandings of both disability and sanctity in the Middle Ages. Across the collection, heterogeneous constructions, and experiences, of disability and holiness are excavated. Analyses span the tenth to the fourteenth century, with discussion of holy men and holy women, Western Christian and Buddhist traditions, hagiographic texts, images, and artefacts. Each chapter underscores that disability and sanctity co-exist with a vast array of connotations, not just fully positive or fully negative, but also every inflection in between. The collection is a powerful rebuttal to the notion of the integral relationship of disability—medieval and otherwise—with sin, stigma, and shame. So doing, it recentres medieval disability history as a lived history that merits exploration and celebration. In this way, the volume serves to reclaim sanctity in disability histories as a means to affirm the possibility of radical disability futures.

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Michael Eber @ebermichael.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

Might I add the important nuance that all the nerds involved in that schism agreed that the answer to both was "yes", but split the church over whether it was ok to posthumously honor one specific guy for saying "yes" to both in a way that was specifically worded to _not_ piss anybody off...

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Reposted by Michael Eber

Tarek Shukrallah (they/them) @tarekshuk.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

Auch wenn in den heutigen Abstimmungen SPD und Grüne nicht mitgestimmt haben, so hat ihre Politik, haben Wettläufe um inhumane Grenzpolitiken und offen rassistisches Hetzen zwischen den bürgerlichen und rechten Parteien diesen Tag erst möglich gemacht. Eure Brandmauer my Ass.

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Zentrum für Politische Schönheit @politicalbeauty.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

Friedrich Merz hat heute eines sehr verantwortlich klar gemacht: Wer die CDU wählt, wählt AfD.

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Liverpool University Press @livunipress.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

We are delighted to launch Essays in Long Late Antiquity: a new #OpenAccess journal in the field of first millennium studies encouraging interdisciplinary and superregional approaches, edited by @calthalas.bsky.social & Jakob Riemenschneider. Find out more: bit.ly/ELLA-blog @unierfurt.bsky.social

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Mateusz Fafinski @calthalas.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

Friends, fellow late antiquity fans! The news are out! We are starting a new journal together with the amazing team at LUP. We want to foster interdisciplinary and exciting articles in essay form as well as peer-reviewed editions and translations of texts. Extremely excited about this!

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Michael Eber @ebermichael.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

Hello Bluesky! I've left it long enough, so here's my introduction: I'm an early medievalist at Uni Cologne working on Latin vitae of trans monks. Aside from trans and queer history, I'm interested in Mediterranean connectivity in the Early Middle Ages, and in book/manuscript history.

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