A new course at Harvard is reexamining the Byzantine Empire, with an emphasis on medieval gender identity, including “genderless angels” and “trans monks.”
The Fall 2024 course Gender in Byzantium will examine “the full spectrum of binary and non-binary conceptualizations, representations, and performances of gender in Byzantium,” which ruled from 476 to 1400 CE.
The $60,000-a-year university plans to publish texts and illustrations about medieval eunuchs, men who were castrated, and educate them as a possible “third gender.”
It also explores the history of women who hid their gender to join a convent, describing themselves as transgender.
But rumors about the course are already causing controversy, with critics claiming it promotes a “woke” political agenda by “inventing history.”
The controversy follows a year of similar accusations against the elite school, which was named the worst school for free speech in the United States in 2023 by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).
A course at Harvard this fall will reimagine the Byzantine Empire with a focus on medieval gender identity, promising “genderless angels” and “trans monks.” Above, a freshly mowed community space on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts
In addition to angelic beings, the course will also consider medieval eunuchs, male-born but castrated members of the Byzantine royal court, as a possible “third gender.” Above, angels are depicted in an early piece of Byzantine art—the 6th-century apse mosaic in the Basilica of San Vitale.
The Byzantine Empire was the successor to the Roman Empire and was founded in 330 AD by the first Christian Roman emperor, Constantine I.
Constantine I also legalized Christianity, which had previously been persecuted in the Roman Empire, making the religion an important part of the culture.
According to the curriculum, the Harvard course will use “textual and visual materials as well as recent scholarly research on gender and sexuality” from the state for lessons.
Topics to be discussed include ‘normative concepts and representations of masculinity and femininity’, ‘same-sex desire and relationships (homosociality)’ and ‘transvestism (trans monks?)’
They’ve made up enough fake gendersWe might as well make history,’ someone shared on X after news of the course broke.
The class will also explore the gender identities of supernatural beings depicted in theological or religious texts,’“disembodied/sexless angels,” the Harvard course description continued.
News of the course has provoked fierce and dismissive reactions from culture warriors since Tuesday. Campus reforma project of the conservative nonprofit Leadership Institute, was the first to write about the course.
“They’ve made up enough fake genders,” posted one user on Elon Musk’s social site X, “might as well make history” (above)
“Just read Satyricon for fun and then move on to real history,” one X user wrote in criticism of the course.
The Satyricon, written in Latin several centuries before the rise of the Byzantine Empire in the first century AD, is considered an early and classic example of parodic literature because of its ironic description of sexual mores, decadence, and the style of Romantic writing in ancient Greece and Rome.
One of the required texts for Harvard’s Gender in Byzantium course, titled Byzantine Intersectionality, portrays the 5th-century Catholic saint Marina the Monk as transgender.
“(Scholars) have repeatedly shied away from calling these figures ‘transgenders,’ instead calling them ‘cross-dressing nuns,’ ‘cross-dressing’ saints, or women in ‘disguise,'” the assigned text reads.
“These derogatory terms, which appear throughout historiography, deny the identification of these individuals as transgender,” the text reads.
This historical figure, also known as Marinos, Pelagia, and Mary of Alexandria, is also honored by the Arab Druze and Eastern Orthodox Churches for her life of monastic worship in present-day Lebanon.
DailyMail.com has reached out to Harvard’s Department of Medieval Studies, which offers the course to undergraduates, for comment.
According to FIRE, Harvard’s lowest score on campus for free speech is based on factors including the strength of its policies protecting free speech and the number of professors, students, and campus visitors the school has targeted for their openly expressed political beliefs.
Harvard’s woke wars have been most intense in the bloody conflict in Gaza. Above is a recent protest camp at Harvard University
Over the past five years, Harvard has seen incidents involving free speech, including the decision to revoke the admission of conservative activist Kyle Kashuv for racist comments he made on social media as a 16-year-old, for which Kashuv apologized.
According to FIRE, Harvard has sanctioned four scientists since 2019, and three of them have been fired from the institution.
Harvard’s woke wars have been at their most intense during the bloody conflict in Gaza, which saw the International Criminal Court issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and three Hamas leaders: Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh.
Outrage over Harvard President Claudine Gay’s handling of pro-Palestinian student protests, compounded by “anti-woke” criticism and a plagiarism scandal, led to the university leader’s resignation late last year.