Eleanor Janega is an American broadcaster and medievalist. Her scholarship focuses on gender and sexuality; apocalyptic thought; propaganda; and the urban experience, in the late medieval period. [1]
Despite her initial interest in pursuing Chinese history in college, particularly the 15th century transition from the Ming Dynasty to the Qing dynasty, upon encountering professors Barbara Rosenwein and Theresa Gross-Diaz at Loyola University Chicago, she says, "It was over," and her career studying Medieval history had begun. [2]
Janega gained her undergraduate degree in History (with honours) from Loyola University Chicago, and holds an MA (with distinction) in Medieval Studies and a PhD in history, both from University College London. [3] Her doctoral thesis was titled Jan Milíč of Kroměříž and Emperor Charles IV: Preaching, Power, and the Church of Prague. [4]
She is a guest teacher in the London School of Economics Department of International History, [3] and teaches a standalone online course on Medieval Gender and Sexuality. [5]
Janega co-hosts the Going Medieval documentary strand on the History Hit streaming service. [6] She also co-hosts the Gone Medieval podcast, and has appeared as a talking head on radio and television. [3]
Sex education, also known as sexual education, sexualityeducation or sex ed, is the instruction of issues relating to human sexuality, including human sexual anatomy, sexual activity, sexual reproduction, safe sex, and birth control, sexual health, reproductive health, emotional relations and responsibilities, age of consent, and reproductive rights. Sex education that includes all of these issues is known as comprehensive sexuality education. In contrast, abstinence-only sex education, which focuses solely on promoting sexual abstinence, is often favored in more socially conservative regions, including some parts of the United States. Sex education may be provided as part of school programs, public health campaigns, or by parents or caregivers. In some countries it is known as "Relationships and Sexual Health Education".
Medieval studies is the academic interdisciplinary study of the Middle Ages. A historian who studies medieval studies is called a medievalist.
Gwerful Mechain, is the only female medieval Welsh poet from whom a substantial body of work is known to have survived. She is known for her erotic poetry, in which she praised the vulva among other things.
Casual sex is sexual activity that takes place outside a romantic relationship and implies an absence of commitment, emotional attachment, or familiarity between sexual partners. Examples are sexual activity while casually dating, one-night stands, prostitution or swinging and friends with benefits relationships.
Lesbianism is the sexual and romantic desire between women. There are historically fewer mentions of lesbianism than male homosexuality, due to many historical writings and records focusing primarily on men.
Erotic horror, alternately called horror erotica or dark erotica, is a genre of fiction in which sensual or sexual imagery are blended with horrific overtones or story elements for the purpose of sexual titillation. Horror fiction of this type is most common in literature and film. Erotic horror films are a cornerstone of Spanish and French horror.
John Rykener, also known as Eleanor, was a 14th-century sex worker arrested in December 1394 for performing a sex act with John Britby, a man who was a former chaplain of the St Margaret Pattens church, in London's Cheapside while wearing female attire. Although historians tentatively link Rykener, who was male, to a prisoner of the same name, the only known facts of his life come from an interrogation made by the mayor of London. Rykener was questioned on two offences: prostitution and sodomy. Prostitutes were not usually arrested in London during this period, while sodomy was an offence against morality rather than common law and so pursued in ecclesiastical courts. There is no evidence that Rykener was prosecuted for either crime.
Bárbara Mujica is an American scholar, novelist, short story writer, and literary critic. She is an Emeritus Professor of Spanish at Georgetown University. Her novels include Frida (2001), Sister Teresa (2007), and Miss del Río (2022).
Amber L. Hollibaugh was an American writer, filmmaker, activist and organizer concerned with working class, lesbian and feminist politics, especially around sexuality. She was a former Executive Director of Queers for Economic Justice and was Senior Activist Fellow Emerita at the Barnard Center for Research on Women. Hollibaugh proudly identified as a "lesbian sex radical, ex-hooker, incest survivor, gypsy child, poor-white-trash, high femme dyke."
Alice Domurat Dreger is an American historian, bioethicist, author, and former professor of clinical medical humanities and bioethics at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, in Chicago, Illinois.
Medieval female sexuality is the collection of sexual and sensual characteristics identified in a woman from the Middle Ages. Like a modern woman, a medieval woman's sexuality included many different aspects. Sexuality does not only refer to a woman's sexual activity, as sexual lives were as social, cultural, legal, and religious as they were personal.
Joan Cadden is Professor Emerita of medieval history and literature in the History Department of the University of California, Davis. She served as president of the History of Science Society (HSS) from 2006 to 2007. She has written extensively on gender and sexuality in medieval science and medicine. Her book Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Age: Medicine, Science, and Culture (1993) received the Pfizer Prize in 1994, from the History of Science Society, as the outstanding book on the history of science.
Accounts of transgender people have been uncertainly identified going back to ancient times in cultures worldwide. The modern terms and meanings of transgender, gender, gender identity, and gender role only emerged in the 1950s and 1960s. As a result, opinions vary on how to categorize historical accounts of gender-variant people and identities.
Menna van Praag is an English novelist and writing educator. Her magical realism novels include The House at the End of Hope Street (2013), The Dress Shop of Dreams (2014), and The Sisters Grimm trilogy.
Jane Chance, also known as Jane Chance Nitzsche, is an American scholar specializing in medieval English literature, gender studies, and J. R. R. Tolkien. She spent most of her career at Rice University, where since her retirement she has been the Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Professor Emerita in English.
Ruth Mazo Karras is an American historian and author of the Middle Ages whose interests are masculinity and sexuality in Christian and Jewish society during the Middle Ages. Her book, Unmarriages: Women, Men, and Sexual Unions in the Middle Ages, was named co-winner of the American Historical Association's Joan Kelly Memorial Prize in Women's History for 2012.
Fedwa Malti-Douglas is a Lebanese-American professor and writer. She is a professor emeritus at Indiana University Bloomington. Malti-Douglas has written several books, including The Starr Report Disrobed (2000). She received a National Humanities Medal in 2015.
Carol Braun Pasternack was a professor of medieval English literature and language at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) from 1988 to 2013. She chaired the Medieval Studies department, and was also Dean of Summer Sessions at UCSB in 2011–2013.
Lisa M. C. Weston is a scholar of medieval literature and Old English language. She teaches at Fresno State Department of English, and served as interim chair of the department in 2019.
Jacqueline Murray is a Canadian medieval historian and professor emeritus of history at the University of Guelph. Her research focuses on sexuality and gender in medieval Europe, with a specific focus on masculinity and male sexuality. She has also studied marriage and the family in the Middles Ages.