The cultural turn in late ancient studies : gender, asceticism, and historiography

Author(s)

Bibliographic Information

The cultural turn in late ancient studies : gender, asceticism, and historiography

edited by Dale B. Martin and Patricia Cox Miller

Duke University Press, 2005

  • : pbk
  • : cloth

Available at  / 5 libraries

Search this Book/Journal

Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. [317]-354) and indexes

Description and Table of Contents

Description

The essays in this provocative collection exemplify the innovations that have characterized the relatively new field of late ancient studies. Focused on civilizations clustered mainly around the Mediterranean and covering the period between roughly 100 and 700 CE, scholars in this field have brought history and cultural studies to bear on theology and religious studies. They have adopted the methods of the social sciences and humanities-particularly those of sociology, cultural anthropology, and literary criticism. By emphasizing cultural and social history and considerations of gender and sexuality, scholars of late antiquity have revealed the late ancient world as far more varied than had previously been imagined.The contributors investigate three key concerns of late ancient studies: gender, asceticism, and historiography. They consider Macrina's scar, Mary's voice, and the harlot's body as well as Augustine, Jovinian, Gregory of Nazianzus, Julian, and Ephrem the Syrian. Whether examining how animal bodies figured as a means for understanding human passion and sexuality in the monastic communities of Egypt and Palestine or meditating on the almost modern epistemological crisis faced by Theodoret in attempting to overcome the barriers between the self and the wider world, these essays highlight emerging theoretical and critical developments in the field. Contributors. Daniel Boyarin, David Brakke, Virginia Burrus, Averil Cameron, Susanna Elm, James E. Goehring, Susan Ashbrook Harvey, David G. Hunter, Blake Leyerle, Dale B. Martin, Patricia Cox Miller, Philip Rousseau, Teresa M. Shaw, Maureen A. Tilley, Dennis E. Trout, Mark Vessey

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix Introduction / Dale B. Martin 1 Gender The Lady Appears: Materializations of "Woman" in Early Monastic Literature / David Brakke 25 No Friendly Letters: Augustine's Correspondence with Women / Maureen A. Tilley 40 On Mary's Voice: Gendered Words in Syriac Marian Tradition / Susan Ashbrook Harvey 63 Is There a Harlot in This Text?: Hagiography and the Grotesque / Patricia Cox Miller 87 Macrina's Tattoo / Virginia Burrus 103 Aestheticism Rereading the Jovinianist Controversy: Aestheticism and Clerical Authority in Late Ancient Christianity / David G. Hunter 119 The Dark Side of Landscape: Ideology and Power in the Christian Myth of the Desert / James E. Goehring 136 Monks and Other Animals / Blake Leyerle 150 Historiography Archives in the Fiction: Rabbinic Historiography and Church History / Daniel Boyarin 175 How to Read Heresiology / Averil Cameron 193 Ascetic Practice and the Genealogy of Heresy: Problems in Modern Scholarship and Ancient Textual Representation / Teresa M. Shaw 213 History, Fiction, and Figuralism in Book 8 of Augustine's Confessions / Mark Vessey 237 Hellenism and Historiography: Gregory of Nazianzus and Julian in Dialogue / Susanna Elm 258 Knowing Theodoret: Text and Self / Philip Rousseau 278 Damasus and the Invention of Early Christian Rome / Dennis E. Trout 298 Bibliography 317 Contributors 355 Index of Modern Authors 357 Index of Citations to Ancient Authors and Scriptures 360

by "Nielsen BookData"

Details

Page Top