Faculty Talk with Prof. Carla Thomas on Sex and Sexuality in Medieval England; 11/15 @ 11am

Please join us for the next of our English Department faculty brown bag talks on Wednesday, November 15th  at 11am. While the talk will be offered remotely, we encourage in person attendance in CU 301.

Of the talk, our Brown Bag organizer, Prof. Tim Miller says:

Carla is writing the "England" chapter in the Arc Humanities Press anthology A Companion to Sexuality in the Medieval West so their "Sex and Sexuality in Medieval England" talk will be a (rough) snippet of what their chapter will cover. Drawing from their experience in teaching the graduate seminar "Medieval Gender and Sexuality" and the senior-level "Women and Literature," Carla has compiled various historical, legal, religious, and literary examples of the complex nature of sex and sexuality in medieval England. While pop culture imagines the Middle Ages as a time dominated by the Church and sexual repression, especially of women, which isn't without its basis, there are also plenty of examples of sexual expression and experimentation. As we all know, if there has to be a rule forbidding or limiting something, it likely means that that thing was happening quite more than the Powers That Be would like, such as speeding, miscegenation, or nuns having sex with each other. 
 
Come join us for a survey of medieval attempts to herd the metaphorical cats of human sex and sexuality during the years of 500-1500 CE in England, as well as shocking moments of resistance, intense love, and sexual imagination.