Leah DeVun (Solmsen Fellow, 2006-2007) received the Haskins Medal from The Medieval Academy of America for her second book The Shape of Sex: Nonbinary Gender from Genesis to Renaissance (Columbia University Press).
“The Haskins Medal is awarded annually by the Medieval Academy of America for a distinguished book in the field of medieval studies. It is the Academy’s most prestigious award and is usually granted to a relatively senior scholar for a work of their maturity.” The Shape of Sex is a pathbreaking history of nonbinary sex, focusing on ideas and individuals who allegedly combined or crossed sex or gender categories from 200–1400 C.E. Ranging widely across premodern European thought and culture, Leah DeVun reveals how and why efforts to define “the human” so often hinged on ideas about nonbinary sex.