English Course at Bryn Mawr Will Examine Renaissance Texts Through ‘Trans Studies’
“Texts for the course will include English authors from the 15th and 16th centuries”
The left can’t meet any subject on its own terms. Everything must be put through a filter that matches their politics.
Campus Reform reports:
Bryn Mawr English course will examine Renaissance texts through ‘trans studies’
An English course slated for this fall at Bryn Mawr College, a liberal arts school in Pennsylvania, will examine Renaissance texts through the lens of contemporary “trans studies.”
The course, called “Early Modern Trans Studies,” will be available for students in fall 2026 and spring 2027, per the course catalog.
“This course will consider the deep histories of transgender embodiment by exploring literary, historical, medical, and religious texts from the Renaissance,” the course description reads. “Expect to read about alchemical hermaphrodites, gender-swapping angels, Ethiopian eunuchs, female husbands, trans saints, criminal transvestites, and genderqueer monks.”
“We will consider together how these early modern texts speak to the historical, theoretical, and political concerns that animate contemporary trans studies,” it continues.
Texts for the course will include English authors from the 15th and 16th centuries (Richard Crashaw, John Donne, William Shakespeare, John Lyly, and Thomas Dekker) and modern-day “gender studies” and “transgender studies” academics (Susan Stryker, Dean Spade, Mel Chen, Paul Preciado, and Kadji Amin).
Stryker, a professor emerita at the University of Arizona’s Gender and Women’s Studies Department, is the author of “Transgender History: The Roots of Today’s Revolution” and the co-editor of “The Transgender Studies Reader.”
Colby Gordon, an associate professor of Literatures in English, is teaching the course. His research interests include “Shakespeare, Renaissance literature, trans studies, queer theory, law and literature, religion and literature.”
Academically, he co-edited an edition of the Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies on “early modern trans studies.” He is the author of “Glorious Bodies: Trans Theology and Renaissance Literature in 2024.”
A description calls Glorious Bodies a “prehistory of transness that recovers early modern theological resources for trans lifeworlds.”
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Comments
Preparing the next generation for their glorious careers as Starbuck’s baristas.
You have not experienced Shakespeare until you have read him in the original Klingon.
What’s next, the Cambodian influence on German literature?
Can they examine the Koran through “trans studies” next? I definitely sign up for that course.
This article is from the Babylon Bee, correct?