The Cultural Turn in Late Ancient Studies. Gender, Asceticism, and Historiography

by: Martin, D.B. Miller, P.C.

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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

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

The Cultural Turn in Late Ancient Studies. Gender, Asceticism, and Historiography

by: Martin, D.B. Miller, P.C.

• ISBN-13: 9780822334224 / 978-0-8223-3422-4
• ISBN-03: 0822334224 / 0-8223-3422-4
• Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina, 2005

Price: 39,00 EURO

1 copy in stock