It's easy to think about the 1500s and 1600s as a time of starched ruffs, strict morals, and silenced women. This class seeks to complicate this story by asking how Renaissance Englishmen and-women wrote about and imagined sex. Studying drama, poetry, recipes, letters, ballads, and more, we'll explore an erotic landscape full of surprises. How did women describe their desire for other women? Was heterosexual intercourse between consenting partners the norm? In what ways could writers express a desire for intimacy with the dead, or nature, or man-made objects? Could they experience asexuality? Did Renaissance authors recognize or celebrate trans identities? We'll pursue these questions and more, inviting each other to test out new ways of reading, writing, and sharing our ideas as a community.
