He then suggests that the ICMS has embraced more recent areas of study by saying, "The 2018 program, for example, features the term 'race' nine times, 'disability' nine times and 'gender' and 'feminism' 48 times." #medievaltwitter
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Here's the problem I see with this logic. I took his cue & counted the terms myself. I actually counted 12 instances of the term "disability," but most of these occur in ONLY 2 SESSIONS both sponsored by the Society for the Study of Disability in the Middle Ages.
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There are 2 other papers beyond these sessions that mention the term "disability," and then the rest of the occurrences appear whenever the SSDMA is mentioned. That's 4 out of 600 sessions that touch on disability in any way.
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As someone who has worked in the area of Medieval Disability Studies for over a decade, I am grateful for the support of the ICMS over the years, but I would hardly count the number of appearances of the term as evidence that the area has been broadly included.
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The same is true for other terms cited in the article. The mere appearance of the terms is not indication that these fields are "included" in a truly meaningful way. Ask me how many times I presented on a disability-related panel w/10 or fewer in the audience.
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Honestly, though, the bigger issue with respect to inclusion is one that the article barely even addresses, which is the degree to which scholars from traditionally underrepresented groups have felt included in both the ICMS and Medieval Studies.
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The call for ICMS to include more sessions about the state of the field is directly related to this larger point about inclusivity. It isn't just a push for "progressivism" for its own sake but is a response to structures that have pushed people to the margins.
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If you want evidence of that, you need only read this powerful blog post by
@Nahir_Otano: http://medievalistsofcolor.com/uncategorized/lost-in-our-field-racism-and-the-international-congress-on-medieval-studies/ …#medievaltwitter1 reply 6 retweets 24 likesShow this thread -
Or listen to the loud calls coming from many angles by medievalists of color, LGBT scholars, early career scholars, and more. Or listen to the whisper networks that have always existed. But we must listen.
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The project of inclusivity in Medieval Studies is a big one, & it will take a collective effort of all of us to make it possible. We cannot reduce the efforts to pat solutions like counting sessions, because the issues are structural and will take a lot of work.
#medievaltwitter10 replies 6 retweets 32 likesShow this thread
And how many years have we all complained about ICMS deciding what should be on the program even when we say x is a priority over y? You are literally imagining that MOC only work on race & not in traditional areas, yet somehow those areas are more comfortable?
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