The College Fix

‘In the Middle Ages there was no rational doubt that humans were created only male and female,’ one scholar responded

Boston University is offering a graduate-level “Medieval Trans Studies” course for the upcoming spring semester that explores how “medieval texts speak to the historical, theoretical, and political concerns that animate contemporary trans studies.”

The course has drawn criticism from scholars who argue that it reflects modern ideological biases rather than historical accuracy.

It considers “the deep histories of transgender embodiment” through an examination of texts stemming from the Middle Ages, according to the course description.

Students will read about “alchemical hermaphrodites, genderfluid angels, Ethiopian eunuchs, trans saints, sex workers, and genderqueer monks,” according to the university.

Adam Kissel, a fellow with the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy, told The College Fix via email, “It is a mistake for the course to misinterpret Medieval texts by indulging modern obsessions.”

He said it is permissible for universities to study how Medieval writers understood their fantasies regarding gender. However, BU’s course is “a distraction from better emphases.”

“In the Middle Ages there was no rational doubt that humans were created only male and female. The people knew that freaks of nature were abnormal,” Kissel said.

“Medieval studies resisted the woke turn in the humanities but eventually succumbed to it. The academic humanities need to be rebuilt from the ground up” as they “are largely self-indulgent activism,” he said.

MORE: I am formerly trans. Why won’t my college let me share my story?

Offering similar criticism, University of Chicago history Professor Rachel Fulton Brown told The College Fix she is not surprised that Boston University would implement a course of this nature. Brown explained the course’s title is likely “intended to get people’s attention.”

“[Sexuality is] degraded to the point…that we don’t take its intense power as seriously,” Brown said.

She said it would be “a great course” if it approached the topic of gender in Medieval times through the lens of Christian mysticism. Medieval monks were intimately devoted to God, understanding themselves as Christ’s brides, she told The Fix.

The course demonstrates how humanity has lost its sense of “being made in the image and likeness of God – and what that means,” she said.

“I think this course is a good symptom of the crisis that we’re in… Are we going to recognize ourselves as creatures of God or are we going to pretend that we are our own makers?” Brown said.

BU Professor Micah Goodrich will teach the course starting next academic semester. The school’s staff directory states that Goodrich’s scholarly interests include “the possibilities and presumed limits of the body’s transformative potential and capacity to self-create,” focusing on “trans studies” and “queer theory.”

Goodrich also has a personal blog in which he writes about “medieval literature, transgender studies, and the history of the body.” The blog states that Goodrich’s new course will show what “a medieval trans studies offer to contemporary trans studies and vice versa.”

The Fix reached out to Goodrich and the school’s media relations and English departments via email for comments on the upcoming course in the last two weeks but received no replies.

The university is also offering several other related courses including “Thinking Queerly,” “Sociology of Gender,” and “Queering Health.”

MORE: Boston University students must take writing class with ‘social justice emphasis’ 

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