"All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered."
The Queer Alchemy of Benvenuto Cellini: Desire, Scandal, and Self-Fashioning in Renaissance Florence Benvenuto Cellini — sculptor, goldsmith, author, swordsman, and scandal — lived at the heart of Renaissance Florence with the fire of a man determined to be seen, remembered, and unruly. Best known for...
Dressed in Double Truth: Visual Echoes of Elen de Céspedes Elen de Céspedes (c. 1545–after 1588) was born in Spain, assigned female at birth, and lived much of their adult life as a man. A former enslaved person and farmworker, they eventually became a licensed surgeon,...
Neither Man Nor Woman, but Saint: the Iconography of St. Marina the Monk In the hagiographic tradition of Eastern Christianity, Saint Marina the Monk (more properly known as Marinos) occupies a space that defies categories. Assigned female at birth, Marina disguised herself as a man to...
Queer Voice and Urban Wit in the Poetry of Abu Nuwas In the glittering intellectual courts of Abbasid Baghdad, one poet spoke of queer desire with wit, joy, and unapologetic sensuality. Abu Nuwas (c. 756–814 CE) — satirist, court jester, and literary rebel — composed verses...
Unbound, Unnameable: Desire and Dissolution in Marguerite Porete’s Mirror “Love has no why,and the soul who loves has no need to ask.She is unbound. She neither wills nor does not will,for she is held, wholly,in the embrace of Love’s will.”-- Marguerite Porete, The Mirror of Simple...
Silence Speaks: Gender, Nature, and Identity in a 13th-Century Romance In the Roman de Silence, written in Old French by Heldris of Cornwall, we meet Silence—a child born female but raised as a boy to circumvent a royal decree forbidding women from inheriting. As the story...
A Flame Between Us: Lament in the Poetry of Kassia “You meet your friend, your faceBrightens – you have struck gold.”-- Hymn and epigrammatic poetry by Kassia (Kassiani), 9th century Byzantium Kassia (Kassiani) was a Byzantine abbess, poet, composer, and intellectual who lived in Constantinople in the...
Swapped Lives, Eternal Forms: Visualising Gender Fluidity in the Torikaebaya Monogatari Torikaebaya Monogatari (literally "If only I could exchange (them)!" often translated as "The Changelings") is a 12th-century Japanese narrative that tells the story of two siblings: a boy raised as a girl and a girl...
Wallada bint al-Mustakfi: the Caliph’s Daughter Who Loved Women and Lived Free Wallada bint al-Mustakfi (Córdoba 1001 – 1091), daughter of a deposed Umayyad caliph, was not merely a noblewoman—she was a poet, provocateur, and cultural icon in the intellectually radiant courts of Al-Andalus. Refusing to...
Love and Lament in the Songs of Jonathan and David “I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan;very pleasant have you been to me.Your love to me was wonderful,surpassing the love of women.”-- Samuel 1:26 Spoken by David upon the death of Prince Jonathan, this lament is...
