Kalamazoo 2009

I wanted to announce this, since I have noticed that some of the Medieval-Blogging world has already announced little tempting scraps of what awaits us all next spring in Kalamazoo.

I am organizing a panel for SSHMA (society for the study of homosexuality in the middle ages), called "Sex, Theory, and Philology: Queering Anglo-Saxon Studies." Some of the who and what of what will go on there is still up in the air, but I can promise that Eileen Joy will be on the panel, and so I suppose I can promise at least one frighteningly exciting performance next spring. Keep your eyes open, and I'll be sure to let you know when the whole thing comes together.

And, I'll include the session proposal blurb here too, because I think it will be a good description of how the session will come together.

Sex, Theory, and Philology: Queering Anglo-Saxon Studies

Taking a hint from Carolyn Dinshaw's claim that an affective historiography could queer historiography itself, as well as the 2008 BABEL session at Kalamazoo titled "Is there a Theory in the House of Old English Studies?," this session especially aims to consider the significance that a Queer history of Anglo-Saxon writing has for contemporary Queer communities. Papers should consider not only a mapping of queer literary history in the Anglo-Saxon period, but also the specific ways that we might queer the very procedures of study for those texts in question. Under examination will be the potential for Queer pleasure in the practice of philology, Queer desire specific to Old English texts, as well as how Queer theory and philology might be better understood as working together—in opposition to traditional views of the opposition of theory and philology. The session will thus provide for possible new discoveries and new directions in the role of Queer theory in Anglo-Saxon studies, while also considering how Anglo-Saxon studies can in turn make theoretical interventions in the contemporary.