Dis/embodiment and Im/materiality: Uncovering the Body, Gender and Sexuality in Late Antiquity. In Memoriam Marianne Sághy (1961‒ 2018) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Gender issues in Plato and Euripides: ancient bodies and gender performativity
Revista Educação e Pesquisa, 2021
The current article draws on Judith Butler's gender performativity theory to analyse two classical text of Greek Antiquity-the Bacchae by Euripides and The Republic by Plato. The concept of gender performativity will be used to illustrate analogously even anachronically, how much the Greek imaginary, in spite of being temporally distant, can fruitfully contribute to, what we would identify as one of the most sophisticated contemporary theories in contemporary gender studies, both as this imaginary emerges from the literary discourse of the tragedy or the discourse of philosophy. This will allow us to show how the two above mentioned texts can contribute to the contemporary debate on the critical theory of gender identity, as these are fixed in performative acts that make gender conform to anatomic sex, limiting gender to the two possibilities of masculine or feminine. Considering the historical context and the question that are specific to the world of Ancient Greece, our analysis will permit us to cast light, in particular, on the strategies that Plato and Euripides drew on to disrupt the gender norms of the polis. Examining the texts allows us to argue that in antiquity, as well as in the contemporary world, albeit in different ways, discussions of gender relations are fitted primarily by the political discourse regarding these relations.
This paper seeks first to interrogate the way(s) in which two contemporary feminist thinkers (Judith Butler and Luce Irigaray) have appropriated, colonised and reformulated a foundationalist signifying economy (Plato’s philosophy of Forms). I will argue that any verdict on these issues of essentialist and constructivist social history must first accommodate a thoroughgoing presentation of all available evidence. The second half of this paper explores the way(s) in which specific (re)presentations of female identity – the gravestone of two citizens of the late-republican city of Rome (CIL 6/3.18524) and the graffito of a Roman ‘poetess’ in the epigraphic environment of early-imperial Pompeii (CIL 4.5296) – (en)gender (in many senses) exactly the kinds of tensions and ambiguities which Butler and Irigaray bring to bear on Plato’s masculinist strategies. What I hope to illustrate is two-fold: a practical method of, and the critical need for, integrating (post-) modern theoretical standpoints on sex/gender issues with the (re)presentational discourses of the ancient world.
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. The impact of the philosophical theories of matter upon the dogmatic debates between Christians and non-Christians, as well as between the diverse Christian theological trends, are largely unexplored and even less clear are the practical spiritual and social consequences of the adoption of one or another theory. The twentieth century has seen a vast array of studies in theories of matter from metaphysical and cosmological perspectives. The dogmatic history of pre-Christian philosophies and metaphysics is now largely written. However, these bodies of literature have rarely intersected with methodologies from feminist theory and philosophy. In turn, feminist scholars often neglect important moments and aspects of the history of Christianity, to radicalize a positive evaluation of embodiment or a negative one of disembodiment. Also, an outstanding task remains to extend these investigations to the world beyond the Mediterranean and to involve into them parallel phenomena in other philosophies and renunciatory traditions, Jainism, Buddhism and in the new Hinduism born in the Middle Ages from a reaction against these reformatory trends. This conference aims at contributing to an eventual closure of the gap between the aforementioned fields. It will focus on the continuity and change in the social perception and role of the body, gender and sexuality in Late Antiquity, on intersections of gender studies, history of sexuality, feminist philosophy, philosophies of late antiquity, patristic and Gnostic studies, the history of asceticism, the history of Indian philosophy. It aims to bring together scholars of Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages to explore how novel theories on late antique Greco-Roman and Indian philosophy, early Christianity, Gnosticism, Buddhism and Jainism connect to gender and sexuality studies. This conference thus has the ambition to attract specialists in the above fields and also to generate discussions on the relevance of feminist methodologies and their adequacy to the existing interpretative literature, and vice versa. We are inviting papers trying to give answers to the questions above.
The End of Patriarchy: Plato and Irigaray on Eros
Dialogue, 2011
ABSTRACT: In an article on Plato’s Symposium entitled “Sorcerer Love” Luce Irigaray attempts a retrieval of the teaching of Diotima of Mantinea on Eros. Finding a stark contrast between the two halves of Diotima’s speech in the Symposium she speculates that the doctrine of Eros contained in the first half of the speech may well represent the teaching of the historical Diotima on which the Platonic ‘metaphysics’ of the second half are super-imposed. While finding much to admire in Irigaray’s account, the author suggests that the two halves of the speech can be read as a unity and that Irigaray’s insights can be accommodated within Platonism.
2022
This is my contribution to an exciting conference in Basel on "Women and Objects", under the direction of Henriette Harich-Schwarzbauer, and in the company of many wonderful scholars from the EUGESTA (European Gender Studies in Antiquity) network (Basel, October, 9 -11, 2017). The argumentative strategy is a criticism of the language of "objectification", on account of what ancient poets and philosophers actually cared about, in their conception of the dialectic of desire. The predominant focus of such a criticism is the importance of the male body, as object OF desire, therefore as INTENTIONAL object of the female gaze. But the overall line of thought is that, contrary to the crude, binary logic of so-called "objectification", we should read carefully the texts and understand how desire aims at the other person's desire, not at the possession of a reified body. I particularly insist on embodiment, as opposed to "the body", and I emphasize the significance of corporeal details, gestures and mannerisms as causes of desire, insofar as they "accentuate" the beloved, and make him/her a singular individual, who stands apart from anyone else -- and whose corporeal presence is lived and lively. This is what psychoanalysis, existential experience, and ancient texts -- when properly read -- have to say.
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.