| Title | Twice Marginal and Twice Invisible |
|---|---|
| Subtitle | On Being the Lone Medievalist Twice in One State |
| Contributor | Michelle M. Sauer (author) |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.21983/P3.0205.1.23 |
| Landing page | https://punctumbooks.com/titles/the-ballad-of-the-lone-medievalist/ |
| License | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ |
| Copyright | Sauer, Michelle M. |
| Publisher | punctum books |
| Published on | 2018-08-23 |
| Long abstract | In the classic Jacqueline Murray article, “Twice Marginal and Twice Invisible: Lesbians in the Middle Ages,”1 she argues that lesbians are challenging to reclaim in history by virtue of being doubly excluded. I’m not exactly comparing myself to a medi-eval lesbian, although a good deal of my scholarship has focused on female same-sex desire in the Middle Ages; however, there have been several instances of intertwined marginalization like this in my career. I was, for example, the only medieval PhD student at my institution. That brought both good and bad, since I got plum teaching assignments (no composition), but lost out on a student community. As a woman of color, I am also sometimes on the outskirts of medieval studies (although that is changing in today’s academic world), but have also been called a “race traitor” by other South Asians since I study “the whitest period in history” (a view also being challenged in today’s academic world). So I guess one could say that I pretty much began my career as a Lone Medievalist in my PhD program, and have continued as such to this very day. |
| Page range | pp. 259–265 |
| Print length | 7 pages |
| Language | English (Original) |