Michael Eber

👀👀👀

#MedievalSky 🗃️

Huge thanks to @erinbartram.bsky.social for including me in this series, and for shepherding my first foray into non-academic writing. This was a blast to work on!

Christ, What a Monster! Something gendered was going on here.

"I had never come across a Christ-figure quite like this."

The latest in our series A Time Of Monsters, from @ebermichael.bsky.social

So the main culture war in Germany, fought by the country’s leader, is that despite mass deportations there are still too many non-white men in German cities: which needs to change so that white German daughters can feel safer. That’s an actual position that he is taking. An incitement to violence.

Today, I resigned as Series Editor of the Hagiography beyond Tradition series & member of the Academic Board for the Premodern Health Disease and Disability series at @amsterdamupress.bsky.social with immediate effect. If any other SEs/Board Members wants to talk about my rationale, my DMs are open

an aerial view of cars driving on a street with a red background Alt: an aerial view of cars driving on a street with a red background

Tomorrow evening at #IMC2025 come to our roundtable discussion with @chillrike.bsky.social @blairapgar.bsky.social “Let’s Continue to Get Uncomfortable!: Doing Intersectionality". You can also attend online. If you can't attend in person but you want to work with us, drop us a line here! 💕

We were pleased to support the Trans Sainthood in Translation, ca. 400–1500 Conference @ghilondon.bsky.social‬ on 22-23 May 2025

Here the organisers reflect upon the event:

pastandpresent.org.uk/reflections-...

This joke is for like two people in the world, and I'm not even one of them

It will finally solve the "P vs NP" problem (phusis vs new prosopon)

This always bears repeating. Getting a GRC is supposed to be the final confirmation, not the first step. Saying you shouldn't live as your acquired gender until you already have a GRC is a bit like saying you shouldn't live in the UK until you're already a British citizen.

Two copies of the book Disability and Sanctity in the Middle Ages

Hello friend

www.aup.nl/en/book/9789...

Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Excellent presentations by researchers in Liverpool today and researchers in London yesterday incl. @natashaamberjo.bsky.social and @aspencerhall.bsky.social. This is all the things I hoped for from academia - learning, sharing knowledge & seeing the next generation rise.

It's happening today!!
www.ghil.ac.uk/events/confe...

Once more for the morning crowd: www.ghil.ac.uk/events/confe...

And here is the link without a typo 🤦 www.ghil.ac.uk/events/confe...

And finally: not to be all "now more than ever"... but this kind of work is unfortunately timely. I hope it will be helpful in the fight, in whatever small way.

We're funded by @ghilondon.bsky.social @dfg.de @pastpresentsoc.bsky.social and Hagiography Society, to all of whom we're very grateful!

Featuring @aspencerhall.bsky.social y.social @stebruhn.bsky.social @charleskuper.bsky.social @natashaamberjo.bsky.social @transliterature.bsky.social and many more who aren't on bluesky (yet).

We also have some (limited!) capacity for people to attend in person. If you are in London in late May and would like to come, please shoot me a message, and I'll see if we can fit you in.

Poster for the conference "Trans Sainthood in Translation, ca. 400-1500", 22-23 May 2025 at German Historical Institute London. More information at www.ghil.ac.uk. In the background behin the title, there is a 13th century depiction of a child looking at a monk (Saint Marina/Marinus) from the manuscript Zwettl, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 13, with an added visual effect that makes it look like white light is coming from the child's eyes and being refracted into rainbow colors by the saint's halo. At the bottom, the logos of the sponsors of the conference: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, German Historical Institute London, the Hagiography Society, and the Past&Present Society.

Program for Day 1 of the conference "Trans Sainthood in Translation": 22 May Welcome and Introduction: 9:00–9:30 Stephan Bruhn (German Historical Institute, London) Session 1: 9:30–11:00 Jenny Albani (Greek Ministry of Culture, Athens): The Holy Memory of a Transgender Saint in the Christian East: The Cult and Image of Pelagia the Penitent Julie Van Pelt (Universiteit Gent): Trans Sainthood and Metaphrasis: Re-writing Gender in the Metaphrastic Life of Theodora/-us of Alexandria (BHG 1730) Charles Kuper (University of Tennessee, Knoxville): Translating the Lives of Trans Saints. Crossing Time and Space in the Greek, Latin, and Syriac Lives of Euphrosyne/Smaragdos Coffee Break: 11:00–11:30 Session 2: 11:30–12:30 Michael Eber (Universität zu Köln): Lost in Translation? Defusing the Lives of Trans Saints in Latin Translation Mariana Bodnaruk (Masarykova Univerzita, Brno): Pelagia*us’ Gender Performance in Church Slavonic Versions of the Life Lunch Break: 12:30–14:00 Session 3: 14:00–15:30 Gabrielle Bychowski (Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland): Imago Transvesti: St. Marinos, the Images of a Transgender God Arietta Papaconstantinou (Aix-Marseille Université): Authorial authority. Who defines the gender of Marina/Marinos (and others)? Luis Josué Salés (Scripps College, Claremont): Exporting Greco-Roman Androprimacy? Perils of Translating Trans Saints Lives into Ethiopian and Syrian Contexts Coffee Break: 15:30–16:00 Keynote 1: 16:00–17:00 Roland Betancourt (University of California Irvine): Trans In/visibility in Byzantium: Resistance, Resilience, Refusal Conference Dinner: 19:00

Program for Day 2 of the conference "Trans Sainthood in Translation": 23 May Session 4: 09:00–10:30 Juliette Vuille (Université de Lausanne): “We are Family”: Familial Ties as Gender Correction in Old English Trans Lives Clovis Maillet (Villa Medici, Rome): Eugeni/e, Hiacynth and Prothus between Genders: Images and Texts in Latin, Greek and Old English James Davison (University of Liverpool): Ælfric, Eugenia*us, and Euphrosyne*Smaragdus: Trans saints in early Medieval England Coffee Break: 10:30–11:00 Session 5: 11:00–12:00 Robert Mills (University College London): Eugenia*us in Translation: Art, Liturgy, and Landscape in Iberia Leticia Ding (Université de Lausanne): Dieudonnée, Marine and Eufrosine: Three Shades of Gender Crossing Lunch Break: 12:00–13:00 Session 6: 13:00–14:00 Johannes Traulsen (Freie Universität Berlin): Age and Asceticism in the Medieval German Vitae of Trans Saints Natasha Bradley (Lincoln College, University of Oxford): Cross-Dressing Saints in Old Norse Translation: Marina the Monk and Pelagia the Penitent Keynote 2: 14:00–15:00 Alicia Spencer-Hall (University College London): Trans Monasticism and the Trans Hagiographic Impulse: Genders, Texts, Lives Concluding Remarks: 15:00–15:15 Michael Eber (Universität zu Köln)

Excited to finally share the program for "Trans Sainthood in Translation, ca. 400-1500" at @ghilondon.bsky.social on 22-23 May 🏳️‍⚧️🌈 If you are interested in trans saints anywhere from late antique Egypt to late medieval Iceland, join us on zoom! Registration at wwwghil.ac.uk/events/confe...

Actually first an egg-based festival called "eggster", later misspelled as "eccster". A continental scribe mistook the "cc" for an "a", where we get "easter". The connection to resurrection comes from the independent misspelling "exter" which is what happened to Christ's body (as opposed to "inter")

If you are trans, this list has resources that might help you. If you can afford the time or money, this list has organizations that need your support to keep trans people in the UK alive against the express wishes of that country’s media and political elite goodlawproject.org/resource/sup...

Yes, I heard ☺️ Glad to hear it's being read

Congratulations 🎉🎉 what great news!!

Front cover of Disability and Sanctity in the Middle Ages. On a pale grey background, a medieval wooden crucifix casts a shadow to its right. Christ is missing his arms and part of his left lower leg. The Crucific is worn, in the process of disintegration.

This volume significantly expands current understandings of both disability and sanctity in the Middle Ages. Across the collection, heterogeneous constructions, and experiences, of disability and holiness are excavated. Analyses span the tenth to the fourteenth century, with discussion of holy men and holy women, Western Christian and Buddhist traditions, hagiographic texts, images, and artefacts. Each chapter underscores that disability and sanctity co-exist with a vast array of connotations, not just fully positive or fully negative, but also every inflection in between. The collection is a powerful rebuttal to the notion of the integral relationship of disability—medieval and otherwise—with sin, stigma, and shame. So doing, it recentres medieval disability history as a lived history that merits exploration and celebration. In this way, the volume serves to reclaim sanctity in disability histories as a means to affirm the possibility of radical disability futures.

Cannot wait for this to be out in the world, current ETA for hardcopy is late spring

www.aup.nl/en/book/9789...

@amsterdamupress.bsky.social @parkerchronicle.bsky.social

#CripSky #DisabilitySky #MedievalSky #Skystorians 🗃️

Might I add the important nuance that all the nerds involved in that schism agreed that the answer to both was "yes", but split the church over whether it was ok to posthumously honor one specific guy for saying "yes" to both in a way that was specifically worded to _not_ piss anybody off...

Auch wenn in den heutigen Abstimmungen SPD und Grüne nicht mitgestimmt haben, so hat ihre Politik, haben Wettläufe um inhumane Grenzpolitiken und offen rassistisches Hetzen zwischen den bürgerlichen und rechten Parteien diesen Tag erst möglich gemacht. Eure Brandmauer my Ass.

Friedrich Merz hat heute eines sehr verantwortlich klar gemacht: Wer die CDU wählt, wählt AfD.

Great news! Finally a replacement for the now-defunct bhlms 🙌