In this collaborative discussion breakout session, Jue Liang (University of Virginia) and Natasha Mikles (Texas State) discuss the dynamics of socially constructed ideas about gender on our readings of classical texts and biographies. The group also explores devotion as a culturally constructed idea and devotional language as gendered. Jue and Natasha lead the group in developing “word banks” of terms that elicit a mood of binary gender constructs and then the discussion naturally unfolds into thoughtful exploration of the deconstruction of the binary and a consideration of the opposites of gender and devotion and the value we place on all […]