Trans (In)visibility in Medieval and Early Modern Visual Cultures

Analyses of modern and contemporary art that foreground trans approaches have burgeoned in recent years, but to date scholars working on earlier periods have been much less visible in the discussion. As such, this session invites proposals on pre-modern visual and material cultures that complicated, effaced or transgressed binary constructions of sex and gender, and/or from scholars applying trans methodologies to medieval and early modern images and objects.

Gender fluidity and mutability can be located both in the trajectories of medieval and early modern lives, and in a wide range of discourses and practices. Artists adopted creative approaches to gender variance in their work; material cultures of bodily ministration and display were at the heart of gender performance; images and objects challenged strictly binary models of embodiment. We welcome proposals from scholars working on pre-modern trans art histories (broadly conceived) from around the globe. We also welcome papers that explore the distinctions and intersections between transgender, nonbinary and queer methodologies.

This session asserts that drawing attention to gender nonconformity in the past is politically urgent, and that art historians working on medieval and early modern materials have a vital contribution to make to this conversation.

We will request accepted papers to be shared with the session respondent a week before the panel. We propose a session composed of preliminary remarks by session convenors followed by 20-minute research papers and then a response, with time for questions and discussion throughout.

Submit your Paper via this form. Please download, complete and send it directly to the Session Convenor(s) below by Sunday 2 November 2025:

Maya Corry, Oxford Brookes, mcorry@brookes.ac.uk

Robert Mills, University College London, robert.mills@ucl.ac.uk