Queer Manuscripts: Special Issue in postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies
- Submitting institution
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Swansea University / Prifysgol Abertawe
- Unit of assessment
- 27 - English Language and Literature
- Output identifier
- 38996
- Type
- B - Edited book
- DOI
-
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- Publisher
- Palgrave Macmillan
- ISBN
- 0000000000
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of publication
- September
- Year of publication
- 2018
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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1
- Research group(s)
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-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- ‘Queer Manuscripts’, a Special Issue of the journal postmedieval, is a co-edited submission developed over four years. It comprises a selection of papers delivered at international conferences at panels that I co-organised with my co-editor, Professor Diane Watt (University of Surrey). I was equally responsible, with Watt, for selecting, editing, arranging external peer review, and overseeing the delivery of a coherent Special Issue. Alongside Watt, I liaised with the editorial board and worked closely with contributors as they developed the content and methodology of their essays.
I contributed to three essays, all co-authored (in equal measure) with Watt: the introduction (‘Towards a Queer Philology’), one article (‘On the Edge: Chaucer and Gower’s Queer Glosses’), and a theoretical framing of the cover image (‘About the Cover’).
The Introduction sets out a field-changing methodology for manuscript studies, canonicity, and the recuperation of past queer subjectivities (from lesbian to trans). My research contribution to the Introduction, shared equally with Watt, entailed the formulation of an unprecedented framework for philological studies based on queer theory, achieved thorough the paradigm-shifting critique of traditional approaches. Our rigorous application of contemporary gender theory to manuscript studies has extricated the discipline from patrilineal readings that cannot account for the non-linear temporalities, collaborative modes of composition and transmission of medieval manuscripts.
Our co-authored article on Chaucer’s and Gower’s glosses applied our innovative methodology to relevant manuscripts. I combined detailed archival-paleographical work on bilingual material (Middle English and Latin) with contemporary gender theories aimed at reframing traditional accounts of canon formation. Instead of relying on masculinist paradigms of transmission based on rivalry between authors and lines of transmission from literary father to son, with Watt, I have provided the evidence to suggest that late medieval literary culture should be afforded a more capacious account of its collaborative and non-teleological processes.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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