Sex in Antiquity by Masterson, Mark; Rabinowitz, Nancy Sorkin; Robson, James;

Short description:

Sexuality and gender in the ancient world is an area of research that has grown quickly with often sudden shifts in focus and theoretical standpoints. This volume contextualises these shifts but puts in place new ideas and avenues of exploration to further innovate in this lively discipline. This broad study also includes studies of gender and sexuality in the Ancient Near East to provide a comparative perspective not often found. Sex in Antiquity is a major contribution to the field of ancient gender and sexuality studies.

Long description:

Looking at sex and sexuality from a variety of historical, sociological and theoretical perspectives, as represented in a variety of media, Sex in Antiquity represents a vibrant picture of the discipline of ancient gender and sexuality studies, showcasing the work of leading international scholars as well as that of emerging talents and new voices.

Sexuality and gender in the ancient world is an area of research that has grown quickly with often sudden shifts in focus and theoretical standpoints. This volume contextualises these shifts while putting in place new ideas and avenues of exploration that further develop this lively field or set of disciplines. This broad study also includes studies of gender and sexuality in the Ancient Near East which not only provide rich consideration of those areas but also provide a comparative perspective not often found in such collections. Sex in Antiquity is a major contribution to the field of ancient gender and sexuality studies.

"A bold and far-reaching collection of articles from some of the most perceptive and influential scholars in the field. This volume embraces the recent re-examination of gender as a critical category of meaning when thinking about sexual behaviors and the culturally produced meanings of sex; as such this book should significantly broaden the field of inquiry concerning ancient sexuality, while sharpening the theoretical positions that inform current debates."

Kirk Ormand, Oberlin College, USA

"Sex in Antiquity appears at a timely moment. This monumental collection of original essays marks the close of a retrospective period and the emergence of exciting new lines of enquiry. It makes two decisive contributions: first, by broadening the established range of the field to include work on the Near Eastern and Judaic sex/gender systems; second, by questioning supposedly settled conclusions on numerous topics, including female desire, impotence, male passivity, pederastic relations, prostitution, queerness, and rape. Its publication will undoubtedly create a second wave of enthusiasm for studying ancient gender and sexuality."

Marilyn B. Skinner, University of Arizona, USA

"[T]he editors of and contributors to this volume offer insightful and sometimes unexpected conversations that take place between current and past scholarship, and provide opportunities to explore the trajectories that scholarship on sex, sexuality, and gender in antiquity might now take... Overall, [the volume] offers thoughtful reflections on how current scholarship on gender and sexuality in antiquity got to where it is today and provides new avenues of inquiry."

F. Mira Green, University of Washington, USA, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 

"This volume is absolutely superb: from cover to cover, 30 chapters and an introduction, it is a tour de force ... The contributions are informative, insightful, articulate and well researched ... the book is an impressive and important work and a necessary read for scholars of the ancient world and sexuality studies."

Darlene M. Juschka, University of Regina, Canada, The Classical Review

"The broad range of chapters investigates important historical and societal issues in ancient Near East, the Greek world, and the Roman world, such as prostitution, assault, rape and war, and pederasty. We also learn about a bizarre range of subjects – such as debatable cases of reproductive magic in the Hebrew Bible; the use of flour in Mesopotamian midwifery; the language of unmanliness in Latin; the Christian martyr Perpetua, and much much more."

Lucia Marchini, Minerva November/December 2018

Table of Contents:

Introduction  Part 1: Ancient Near East  1. Susan Ackerman ‘I Have Hired You with My Son’s Mandrakes’: Women’s Reproductive Magic in Ancient Israel  2. Roland Boer From Horse Kissing to Beastly Emissions: Paraphilias in the Ancient Near East  3. Stephanie L. Budin Fertility and Gender in the Ancient Near East  4. Gwendolyn Leick Too Young - Too Old? Sex and Age in Mesopotamian Literature  5. Elna K. Solvang Guarding the House: Conflict, Rape, and David’s Concubines  Part 2: Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic Greece  6. Alastair J.L. Blanshard Fantasy and the Homosexual Orgy: Unearthing the Sexual Scripts of Ancient Athens  7. Claude Calame Relations of Sex and Gender in Greek Melic Poetry: Helen Object and Subject of Desire  8. Monica S. Cyrino Of Love and Bondage in Euripides’ Hippolytus  9. Dorota Dutsch Dog-Love-Dog: Kynogamia and Cynic Sexual Ethics  10. Kathy L. Gaca Ancient Warfare and the Ravaging Martial Rape of Girls and Women: Evidence from Homeric Epic and Greek Drama  11. Allison Glazebrook ‘Sex Ed’ at the Archaic Symposium: Prostitutes, Boys and Paideia  12. Simon Goldhill Is There a History of Prostitution?  13. Edward M. Harris ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ in Women’s Desire  14. Andrew Lear Was Pederasty Problematized? A Diachronic View  15. Sheila Murnaghan Naming Names, Telling Tales: Sexual Secrets and Greek Narrative  16. Walter Penrose Before Queerness? Visions of a Homoerotic Heaven in Ancient Greco-Italic Tomb Paintings  17. Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz Melancholy Becomes Electra  18. James Robson Fantastic Sex: Fantasies of Sexual Assault in Aristophanes  Part 3: Republican, Imperial and Late Ancient Rome  19. Sandra Boehringer What is Philaenis the name of? The Identity, Function and Authority of an Unnamed Figure  20. Daniel Boyarin Friends without Benefits; or, Academic Love  21. Matthew Fox The Bisexuality of Orpheus  22. Hunter H.Gardner Curiositas, Horror, and the Monstrous-Feminine in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses  23. Barbara Gold The Remaking of Perpetua: A Female Martyr Reconstructed  24. Judith P. Hallett Making Manhood Hard: Tiberius and Latin Literary Representations of Erectile Dysfunction  25. Deborah Kamen and Sarah Levin-Richardson Revisiting Roman Sexuality: Agency and the Conceptualization of Penetrated Males  26. Mark Masterson Toward a Late-Ancient Physiognomy  27. Kelly Olson Toga and Pallium: Status, Sexuality, Identity  28. Amy Richlin Reading Boy-Love and Child-Love in the Greco-Roman World  29. Steven D. Smith Agathias and Paul the Silentiary: Erotic Epigram and the Sublimation of Same-Sex Desire in the Age of Justinian  30. Craig Williams The Language of Gender: Lexical Semantics and the Latin Vocabulary of Unmanly Men  Index