François·e Charmaille
@fcharmaille.bsky.social
Research fellow, Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge University. They/them. Transing grammar; transing the climate.
Pinned
The Middle Ages are not essential -- and that is what makes them so helpful to us. Prior to the hegemony of racial capitalism, medieval cultures offer us a glimpse into other ways of thinking and being, revealing our own capacity to be otherwise.
This is the topic of my essay in Speculum.
This is the topic of my essay in Speculum.
Read it here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
And make sure to look through the whole issue. This centennial publication offers a remarkable, open-ended, prismatic panorama of new directions from across medieval studies. It is a heartening picture of a field that continues to flourish.
And make sure to look through the whole issue. This centennial publication offers a remarkable, open-ended, prismatic panorama of new directions from across medieval studies. It is a heartening picture of a field that continues to flourish.
The Contingent Middle Ages | Speculum: Vol 101, No 1
www.journals.uchicago.edu
January 6, 2026 at 3:44 PM
Read it here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
And make sure to look through the whole issue. This centennial publication offers a remarkable, open-ended, prismatic panorama of new directions from across medieval studies. It is a heartening picture of a field that continues to flourish.
And make sure to look through the whole issue. This centennial publication offers a remarkable, open-ended, prismatic panorama of new directions from across medieval studies. It is a heartening picture of a field that continues to flourish.
The Middle Ages are not essential -- and that is what makes them so helpful to us. Prior to the hegemony of racial capitalism, medieval cultures offer us a glimpse into other ways of thinking and being, revealing our own capacity to be otherwise.
This is the topic of my essay in Speculum.
This is the topic of my essay in Speculum.
January 6, 2026 at 3:39 PM
The Middle Ages are not essential -- and that is what makes them so helpful to us. Prior to the hegemony of racial capitalism, medieval cultures offer us a glimpse into other ways of thinking and being, revealing our own capacity to be otherwise.
This is the topic of my essay in Speculum.
This is the topic of my essay in Speculum.
Read it here 👇
doi.org/10.1353/sac....
& please let me know if you have any trouble accessing this paper.
doi.org/10.1353/sac....
& please let me know if you have any trouble accessing this paper.
Project MUSE - Lacan and the Medieval Gender Metaphor
doi.org
December 15, 2025 at 12:11 PM
Read it here 👇
doi.org/10.1353/sac....
& please let me know if you have any trouble accessing this paper.
doi.org/10.1353/sac....
& please let me know if you have any trouble accessing this paper.
This culminates in a trans/medieval critique of Lacan's transcendental sexual difference.
This colloquium is generously edited by Ruth Evans and Jessica Rosenfeld, with brilliant contributions from A. E. Whitacre, Masha Raskolnikov, Zachary Engledow, and Grace Lavery.
This colloquium is generously edited by Ruth Evans and Jessica Rosenfeld, with brilliant contributions from A. E. Whitacre, Masha Raskolnikov, Zachary Engledow, and Grace Lavery.
December 15, 2025 at 12:11 PM
This culminates in a trans/medieval critique of Lacan's transcendental sexual difference.
This colloquium is generously edited by Ruth Evans and Jessica Rosenfeld, with brilliant contributions from A. E. Whitacre, Masha Raskolnikov, Zachary Engledow, and Grace Lavery.
This colloquium is generously edited by Ruth Evans and Jessica Rosenfeld, with brilliant contributions from A. E. Whitacre, Masha Raskolnikov, Zachary Engledow, and Grace Lavery.
It's an honour to contribute to the colloquium on "Psychoanalysis, Transgender Studies, and Medieval Studies" in Studies in the Age of Chaucer.
I argue that Lacan's critique of metaphor allows us to join up a distinctly medieval concept of "gender" with present-day anxieties about toilets.
I argue that Lacan's critique of metaphor allows us to join up a distinctly medieval concept of "gender" with present-day anxieties about toilets.
December 15, 2025 at 12:11 PM
It's an honour to contribute to the colloquium on "Psychoanalysis, Transgender Studies, and Medieval Studies" in Studies in the Age of Chaucer.
I argue that Lacan's critique of metaphor allows us to join up a distinctly medieval concept of "gender" with present-day anxieties about toilets.
I argue that Lacan's critique of metaphor allows us to join up a distinctly medieval concept of "gender" with present-day anxieties about toilets.
This has everything to do with horses' bones, and with the Pardoner in Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
Read about it in The Chaucer Review.
muse.jhu.edu/article/961888
Read about it in The Chaucer Review.
muse.jhu.edu/article/961888
Project MUSE - Sodomy Against the Binary with Chaucer’s Pardoner
muse.jhu.edu
June 13, 2025 at 4:15 PM
This has everything to do with horses' bones, and with the Pardoner in Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
Read about it in The Chaucer Review.
muse.jhu.edu/article/961888
Read about it in The Chaucer Review.
muse.jhu.edu/article/961888
Out today! Sodomy is "the sin against nature." But what is "nature"? "Heterosexuality" seems like the obvious answer, but such a term is anachronistic... Sodomy might be better understood as the disruption of the division between male and female.
June 13, 2025 at 4:14 PM
Out today! Sodomy is "the sin against nature." But what is "nature"? "Heterosexuality" seems like the obvious answer, but such a term is anachronistic... Sodomy might be better understood as the disruption of the division between male and female.
Very pleased that my article on sodomy and the Pardoner will appear in what promises to be a rich and lively issue of The Chaucer Review.
May 30, 2025 at 10:37 AM
Very pleased that my article on sodomy and the Pardoner will appear in what promises to be a rich and lively issue of The Chaucer Review.
Yes! This is a great way of putting it.
May 12, 2025 at 4:33 PM
Yes! This is a great way of putting it.
Reposted by François·e Charmaille
Also enjoyed how some of what you were saying, especially in the context of historic ideas of gender, overlapped with this Tumblr post, but like, with an actual academic basis. an-ruraiocht.tumblr.com/post/7790442...
bidh ionann leacht damh is dó
the thing about using modern labels to describe and delimit historical identities and relationships is that it implies that modern labels describe all of the types of identities and relationships that...
an-ruraiocht.tumblr.com
May 9, 2025 at 11:15 AM
Also enjoyed how some of what you were saying, especially in the context of historic ideas of gender, overlapped with this Tumblr post, but like, with an actual academic basis. an-ruraiocht.tumblr.com/post/7790442...
No worries, I'm so glad you could make it, and will welcome your thoughts whenever you are able to formulate them
May 9, 2025 at 11:02 AM
No worries, I'm so glad you could make it, and will welcome your thoughts whenever you are able to formulate them
Friday 2 May, 5pm, in Cambridge: I will be speaking at the ASNC Research Seminar, about The Contingent Middle Ages. The Middle Ages are generative, are worth engaging with, because they are inessential. I'm very excited to share this work.
GR04 in the Faculty of English.
GR04 in the Faculty of English.
April 30, 2025 at 10:52 AM
Friday 2 May, 5pm, in Cambridge: I will be speaking at the ASNC Research Seminar, about The Contingent Middle Ages. The Middle Ages are generative, are worth engaging with, because they are inessential. I'm very excited to share this work.
GR04 in the Faculty of English.
GR04 in the Faculty of English.
Reposted by François·e Charmaille
🥳 It’s publication day! 🥳
IMPOSSIBLE RECOVERY is now available to buy and online via institutional access.
Read more about the book and buy a copy at 20% off with code CUP20: cup.columbia.edu/book/impossi...
Or access online: www.degruyter.com/document/doi...
IMPOSSIBLE RECOVERY is now available to buy and online via institutional access.
Read more about the book and buy a copy at 20% off with code CUP20: cup.columbia.edu/book/impossi...
Or access online: www.degruyter.com/document/doi...
January 21, 2025 at 9:53 AM
🥳 It’s publication day! 🥳
IMPOSSIBLE RECOVERY is now available to buy and online via institutional access.
Read more about the book and buy a copy at 20% off with code CUP20: cup.columbia.edu/book/impossi...
Or access online: www.degruyter.com/document/doi...
IMPOSSIBLE RECOVERY is now available to buy and online via institutional access.
Read more about the book and buy a copy at 20% off with code CUP20: cup.columbia.edu/book/impossi...
Or access online: www.degruyter.com/document/doi...
Writers over the course of the Middle Ages interpreted the classical myth of Tiresias's sex change as an allegory for the cycle of the seasons. This led to the emergence of a strange notion: that the seasons have genders, that the climate is trans.
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
Trans Climates of the European Middle Ages, 500–1300 | Speculum: Vol 98, No 3
Abstract This article gathers evidence of a distinct strand of writing in Western Europe from the sixth century onwards which concerns itself with the relation between the seasons and sexual differenc...
www.journals.uchicago.edu
November 20, 2024 at 5:47 PM
Writers over the course of the Middle Ages interpreted the classical myth of Tiresias's sex change as an allegory for the cycle of the seasons. This led to the emergence of a strange notion: that the seasons have genders, that the climate is trans.
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
Were there medieval medical theories of intersex? Was there a distinction between sex and gender? How were humors related to sex/gender? What does it do to a woman if she has too much greenness in her body?
I wrote about it in Exemplaria, and it's Open Access.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
I wrote about it in Exemplaria, and it's Open Access.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Intersex Between Sex And Gender In Cause Et Cure
This article argues that intersex is present in medieval medical texts outside of the medieval concept of hermaphroditism. The phlegmatic man, the phlegmatic woman, and the sanguine man, in the twe...
www.tandfonline.com
November 19, 2024 at 5:11 PM
Were there medieval medical theories of intersex? Was there a distinction between sex and gender? How were humors related to sex/gender? What does it do to a woman if she has too much greenness in her body?
I wrote about it in Exemplaria, and it's Open Access.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
I wrote about it in Exemplaria, and it's Open Access.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Since I've recently joined I may as well share some of my previous work.
What kind of political work do we perform by claiming people in the premodern past were "gay"? How can an encounter with the past transform us? I wrote about it in Diacritics. muse.jhu.edu/article/845151
What kind of political work do we perform by claiming people in the premodern past were "gay"? How can an encounter with the past transform us? I wrote about it in Diacritics. muse.jhu.edu/article/845151
Project MUSE - Queer Strategies of Gay History: Boswell's "Weapons", Foucault's <i>Expérience</i>
muse.jhu.edu
November 18, 2024 at 6:37 PM
Since I've recently joined I may as well share some of my previous work.
What kind of political work do we perform by claiming people in the premodern past were "gay"? How can an encounter with the past transform us? I wrote about it in Diacritics. muse.jhu.edu/article/845151
What kind of political work do we perform by claiming people in the premodern past were "gay"? How can an encounter with the past transform us? I wrote about it in Diacritics. muse.jhu.edu/article/845151
