This call for papers–the deadline for which has passed, to the great misfortune, I am sure, of Phi Beta Cons readers–is just too amusing not to pass along.

I think people only viscerally acquainted with academia would assume Medieval Studies to be one of the more stodgy, conservative fields, when it is, in fact, one of the zaniest. Behold:

Columbia University Annual Medieval Guild Graduate Student Conference
Medieval Bodies: Traversing Sex and Gender in the Middle Ages
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Keynote Speaker: Professor Karma Lochrie
The graduate students of the Columbia University Department of
English and Comparative Literature invite twenty-minute papers
addressing the topic of bodies/ traversing sex and gender in the
Middle Ages for their annual conference.
Possible topics may include:
– Traversing Bodily Boundaries: bodily/ textual boundaries;
transgender bodies; human and inhuman assemblages and gender; sacred
transformations; gendered spaces; inheritance and bodies: mothering,
fathering, and nurturing
– Materiality and Gendered Bodies: veiling, bodily marking,
circumcision, and similar practices; the marked / sexed body;
transformative gendered objects: relics et. al; sumptuary culture and
gender
– Performance and Gender: sacred performances of gender; sex, texts
and literacy; gendered literary communities; gossip, rumors and
gender; cross-dressing and transgressive performance; costume and
gender; queer studies and homosocial relationships; friendship, troth,
and honor; masculinity/femininity and violence; war and gender
We will consider all papers on the topic of bodies/ traversing sex
and gender in the Middle Ages and encourage interdisciplinary
submissions. […] For more information, contact
[email protected] .
Conference Organizers: Elizabeth Bonnette, Jessica Fenn, Brigit McGuire

There is just so much fodder here…

But to sate myself merely with questioning the conference’s title: Whence comes the bizarre construction of “traversing sex and gender”? Is “traversing” supposed to be the new “transgressing”? Because when I think “traverse,” I conjure the mental image of a leisurely stroll across an alpine meadow, not mental inundation by grad-student papers brimming with gender theory.

I notice keynote speaker Karma Lochrie’s latest book is called Heterosyncracies: Female Sexuality when Normal Wasn’t. Doubtless there is a joke to be made about how a gender studies prof riding a tractor, and being photographed as such for one’s academic-website picture, must be just such a “heterosyncracy.” But I won’t make it.