Dr. Kersti Francis to Give Talk-Race and Magic in Partonope of Blois

-Dr. Kersti Francis (she/they) is a member of Boston University’s Society of Fellows, where she holds appointments in English and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Their current project, Queer Magic: Sodomy, Sin, and the Supernatural 1150-1650, uses contemporary natural philosophy and canon law to interrogate how premodern thinkers constructed categories ranging from gender and sexuality to race and religion via literary depictions of magic. Her work appears in Medieval Feminist Forum, Painful Pleasures: Sadomasochism in the Middle Ages, The Digital Medievalist, Comitatus, Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere.

This event is co-sponsored by the Five College Medieval Studies Seminar, Amherst College English Department, and UMass English Department.