Includes bibliographical references and index.

Notes on Contributors -- Introduction The Transcultural Medieval Mediterranean -- Felipe E. Rojas and Peter E. Thompson -- part 1 -- Conquests -- 1 Anomalous al-Andalus Time, Space, Desire -- Denise K. Filios -- 2 The Masculine Body in the Mediterranean Queering the Other in El Monserrate and Tirant lo Blanc -- Vicente Lledó-Guillem -- part 2 -- Femininities -- 3 Bad Girls and Gender Trouble in the Thirteenth-Century Mediterranean -- Sahar Amer -- 4 Going Between Bodies, Minds, and Spaces The Alcahueta as the Queer Third Party -- Leyla Rouhi -- part 3 -- Literatures -- 5 Perversion and Subversion Mother Guidance and Illicit Sexuality in Ibn Dāniyāl's Shadow Play -- Edmund Hayes -- 6 Queer Names and Experiences in Old French and Romance Literatures -- Ellen Lorraine Friedrich -- part 4 -- Captives -- 7 Beaucaire, "Cartage," Torelore The Imaginary Mediterranean's Queer Carnival in Aucassin et Nicolette -- Robert S. Sturges -- 8 "Amor de voluntad"/"Love freely given" Homonormativity in Alfonso X, el Sabio's Legislation on Captives -- Israel Burshatin -- part 5 -- Encounters -- 9 Spain's Pecado Sodomítico and Its Mediterranean Intertextualities -- Gregory S. Hutcheson -- 10 At the Crossroads of Intercultural Desire in the Levant Cultural Notes from the Bathhouse -- Robert L.A. Clark -- Index.

In ten essays authored by an international team of scholars, this volume explores queer readings of Western and Eastern Mediterranean Europe, Northern Africa, Islam and Arabic traditions. The contributors enter into a dialogue, comparing cases from opposite sides of the Mediterranean, in order to analyze the forgotten exchange of sexualities that was brought forth through the Mediterranean and its bordering landmasses during the Middle Ages. This collection questions the hypothesis that distinct cultures treated sexuality and the "other" differently. The volume initiates the conversation around queerness and sexuality on these trade routes, and problematizes the differences between various Mediterranean cultures in order to argue that through both queerness and sexuality, neighboring civilizations had access to, and knowledge of, common shared experiences. Contributors are Sahar Amer, Israel Burshatin, Robert L.A. Clark, Denise K. Filos, Ellen Lorraine Friedrich, Edmund Hayes, Gregory S. Hutcheson, Vicente Lledó-Guillem, Leyla Rouhi, and Robert S. Sturges.

Description based on print version record.