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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 · 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 · 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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