If you could pick a gender, any gender, which one would that be, and why would it 1000% be knight? In this special minisode, I get to answer that question with Mabel Mundy, who shares fascinating insights into the genderfuckery of chivalric romance and crossdressing knights. Tune in now, to learn more about why gender ambiguity clearly is, and has always been, super hot, and how this plays out in Edmund Spenser and Philip Sidney’s writing.

If you too are picturing Brienne of Tarth at the bathhouse when hearing about Britomart, follow @queerlitpodcast on Instagram and let me know in the comments. To learn more about Mabel’s work, follow her on Twitter at @mabelcjmundy.

A big, big thank you to the brilliant team of Queer and Trans Philologies at Cambridge University for creating this space!

References:

Petition: https://www.change.org/p/support-our-surrey-campaign?

This is not an isolated issue! See this list of current large-scale UK HE redundancies: https://qmucu.org/qmul-transformation/uk-he-shrinking/

https://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/39800/#call-for-papers
Queer and Trans Philologies
University of Cambridge
CRASSH @crasshlive (Instagram)
Crossdressing
Genderfuckery
Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene
Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia
Margaret Cavendish’s The Covenant of Pleasure
Chivalric Romance
Britomart
Malecasta
Bradamante
Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso
Diane Watt
The Redcrosse Knight
Una

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1. What forms of genderfuckery does Mabel talk about? If you are not familiar with the term, please look it up and/or check out the Queer Lit episode with Nick Cherryman.
2. Why is Mabel particularly interested in doing research on chivalric romances?
3. Mabel comments on how crossdressing knights can reveal something about the social category of gender that is possibly more important than their individual gender. Would you agree with that? Why or why not?
4. Do you have a favourite knight?