Sexuality, Gender, Body History (original) (raw)
What do material and documentary sources say about ancient attitudes toward men and women, gender and sexuality? What social purpose(s) might these sources have served? These are the kinds of questions which tax the student of social history in the ancient Mediterranean world, and these are the questions which this seminar on Gender, Sexuality, Body History will address. This seminar is designed (a) to examine how men and women lived in the ancient world, the spaces they occupied, the roles they played and the laws which governed them; (b) to understand how cultures in the ancient Mediterranean defined the categories of masculine and feminine and how these categories were deployed in the discourses of literature, politics, law, religion and medicine; and, finally, (c) to consider how ancient conceptions of gender have shaped our contemporary views of male and female roles. The seminar will also address the problems posed both by literary and non-literary source materials, and the question of how the disciplines of ancient history and classical studies have dealt with the issue of gender and sexuality in the past several decades.
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Allusions to ancient and biblical models play key roles in the articulation and enforcement of gender norms in medieval eastern Roman society. This essay explores how ancient figures could be used as normative models for ethical practices that differed significantly from those of their own society, focusing on the example of the fourth-century BCE Spartan king Agesilaus, a polytheist whose sexual attraction to young men was acceptable and open within his society, and who appears in the early twelfth-century CE history by George Kedrenos as a model of celibacy. He is remembered for having the strength of character to turn down a kiss from a boy and upheld as an example of the virtue of chastity. Tracing this one story helps us see the mechanics of cultural transmission that moved Agesilaus’s story across 17 centuries, and how gradual changes in ethical systems allowed George Kedrenos and his audience to perceive Agesilaus’ ethics as consonant with their own. Classical Greek figures served as examples of ethical behavior because, rather than standing as an example of foreignness, Xenophon’s story affirmed the central tenants of twelfth-century ethics.
2019
In his book From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity, Kyle Harper emphasizes that Christianity had made an enormous difference in how late ancient men and women conceptualized their passions and sexual activities. Also, feminist critics of ancient philosophical theories have focused on theories of matter. Fascinated by Aristotle’s identification of matter with privation, ugliness and femininity, they often tend to consider mainstream philosophies as sexist and the positive evaluation of matter and body as the gauge of the liberation of the female gender. Moreover, there is a tendency to link the Christian dichotomy of spirit and flesh to these philosophical theories. On the other hand, Late Antique scholars, following the lead of Peter Brown, have pointed to the function of sexual renunciation in early Christianity in liberating women from their traditional roles played in the Roman society. Yet, rarely if ever do scholars who are engaged in gender and sexuality studies attempt to conduct a comprehensive and in-depth study into these interrelated phenomena, while mainstream scholarship on these often turns a blind eye to the gendered perspective.
FEMALE HOMOSEXUALITY IN ANCIENT GREECE AND ROME
Routledge, 2021
This groundbreaking study, among the earliest syntheses on female homosexuality throughout Antiquity, explores the topic with careful reference to ancient concepts and views, drawing fully on the existing visual and written record including literary, philosophical, and scienti c documents. Even today, ancient female homosexuals are still too often seen in terms of a mythical, ethereal Sapphic love, or stereotyped as "Amazons" or courtesans. Boehringer's scholarly book replaces these clichés with rigorous, precise analysis of iconography and texts by Sappho, Plato, Ovid, Juvenal, and many other lyric poets, satirists, and astrological writers, in search of the prevailing norms, constraints, and possibilities for erotic desire. The portrait emerges of an ancient society to which today's sexual categories do not apply-a society "before sexuality"-where female homosexuality looks very di erent, but is nonetheless very real. Now available in English for the rst time, Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome includes a preface by David Halperin. This book will be of value to students and scholars of ancient sexuality and gender, and to anyone interested in histories and theories of sexuality.
Masculinities: a journal of identity and culture , 2014
"This paper examines the growth and some of the disputes surrounding “masculinity” as a legitimate category for both social and more traditional scholars seeking to understand Late Antiquity. It shows how investigations of masculinity often serve a political purpose. Some researchers delve into a topic such as “homosexuality” as a way of revealing how particular societies such as ancient Greece and Rome had greater tolerance towards same-partner sex than their modern counterparts. This agenda helps to explain why many studies on Late Antique masculinity focus on men as sexual beings. It might also account for the reluctance by some academics to accept social history as a legitimate historical tool. "
Gender in the Ancient Mediterranean
Syllabus for graduate seminar offered Spring 2023, Department of Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Studies, University of British Columbia
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The International Encyclopedia of Human Sexuality. P. Whelehan and A. Bolin (eds.), Wiley & Sons, 2015